


letting go to hold on tighter

by starkreactor



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Character Death, M/M, Mission Fic, Not Star Trek Beyond Compliant, Wordcount: 10.000-30.000, not permanent death, well kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-18
Updated: 2019-03-18
Packaged: 2019-11-23 08:16:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 26,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18149381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starkreactor/pseuds/starkreactor
Summary: The hallucination frowned, hands clasped behind it’s back like it was normal. It certainlylookednormal, dressed in science blues and regulation black slacks with the golden trim denoting First Officer on the sleeves. “Have I come to my physical life’s end?”“Have you—are you asking me if you’re dead right after I just sent you off to the Vulcan afterlife?” Jim groaned into his hands. “This is it, I’m insane. I cracked. Space has ruined my sexy brain cells.”[ in which Jim faces a dead Spock turned ghost Spock and the emotional baggage that comes with it. ]





	letting go to hold on tighter

**Author's Note:**

> so this was supposed to be a short 5K max character death study but over four days it turned into a 26K long story bc fuck yeah we love adding plot! This is not the first star trek fic I've written but it's the first I'm posting publicly.
> 
> note: I have taken Liberties with some aspects of Vulcan telepathy and healing trances and used the online Vulcan dictionary for some of the religious concepts used here. The character death also does not last long but it is a major part of the plot so it’s tagged.
> 
> [ i really tried to break this up into chapters but i couldnt find a good chapter break ]

“Bridge to Captain Kirk.”

Jim squirmed in the blanket cocoon he had been wrapped in for at least the past twenty-one hours, a tired sigh escaping from his cracked lips. He reached out for his communicator and flipped it open, clearing his throat before he answered. “Kirk here.”

There was a pause on the other end of the line before the speaker continued with easily identifiable hesitation. “We’re in orbit at New Vulcan.”

“I ordered us to go; there’s no need to be hesitant about our arrival,” he replied with slight annoyance, knowing he had no need to feel the irritation at his crew being cautious about any reaction he has concerning Vulcan. “I’ll make my way to the bridge.”

“But Dr. McCoy ordered you to three more days off-duty, sir.” 

“Off-duty not off-bridge,” Jim pointed out, uncurling himself from the blankets as he stepped out of bed. “I’ll be there in ten. Kirk out.” 

Ten minutes was an ambitious goal as Jim knew he didn’t particularly feel like doing anything to make himself presentable to his bridge crew, but he knew he had to clean up and at least look like he had been isolating himself in his quarters for ten hours not twenty-one. He wasn’t going to get rid of the deep bags under his eyes anytime soon and he definitely couldn’t fool anyone about the emotional baggage he carried on his shoulders from the last mission.

He shuddered and made his way to the bathroom in solemn, eyes darting away from the opposite side of the small room where a locked door stood untouched for at least the past week. Jim didn’t know what day it was anymore; he only knew Bones confined him to his quarters around two days ago and refused to let him out. Bones only came to check on Jim every so often, still dealing with a debacle in the medbay. Jim promised he’d take care of himself while on leave but Bones probably knew just as much as Jim did that he wouldn’t. The hypos meant to grant him sleep still laid untouched on his bedside table, the replicator was probably collecting dust already since he hadn’t touched it in a couple weeks.

Jim’s shower lasted seven minutes, three of which he spent crying (and that was something he was not going to admit to anyone), and it gave him only three minutes in all to get dressed in regulation command gold and reach the turbolift to head to the bridge in the ten he said he would take. In the end, it took Jim seventeen minutes in all and when he arrived, the echo of Chekov’s _captin on ze bridge_ speared the tension-filled air as they all looked at Jim as if he was a zombie.

Sulu jumped from the captain’s chair like it burned him, quickly making his way to his navigator’s chair beside Chekov. Jim wanted to smile but he found it hard to even fake it as a weight pressed on his chest. He nodded for everyone to resume their previous tasks; they didn’t, not immediately at least as they watched him with careful concerned eyes. Jim tapped the holographic buttons on the chair’s arm, pulling up charts and waving his hand across the screen to bring up those dreaded words. A lump formed in his throat as his eyes grazed across the formal text, meaning lost yet simultaneously found in the pained dryness the words presented. 

_Approval for USS Enterprise in New Vulcan Airspace_ , it began, a simple standard header with text in Federation Standard and logographic Vulcan. _Reason for Arrival: Burial Ceremony for Lieutenant Commander First Officer S’chn T’gai Spock of the United Federation of Planets’ Starfleet Flagship USS Enterprise._

Jim’s fingers traced the logograms that spelled Spock’s name, remembering a day that felt like years ago when Spock tried to teach Jim how to spell his name in Vulcan and High Vulcan after a particularly grueling chess match. “Why would I need to know this?” Jim had asked with confusion when Spock drew his name carefully on a PADD, fingers dancing gracefully across the glass screen. 

The Vulcan rose a carefully arched eyebrow as he turned the PADD toward his captain. “I know how to dictate your full name in your native written language, correct? It is only fair you know how to properly write my own.”

Jim took the PADD with a curious lilt to his lips but traced the foreign characters with a hum. He didn’t take Vulcan at the Academy, only Romulan, Andorian, and a healthy number of Federation Standard dialects, along with a bit of Klingon but that was mostly because he wanted to learn how to be lewd in as many languages as possible. The blonde noted some similarities to Romulan in the script and looked up once he finished tracing, spotting a minor flush of green high on Spock’s cheek bones.

“Are you okay? Did I accidentally write something crude? I don’t think I exactly followed your stroke order.” Jim huffed sheepishly and passed the device over without looking into the Vulcan’s eyes.

Spock seemed to fall out of his stupor and accepted the PADD with silence. “Negative, captain; you have written my name correctly.” The green flush came back stronger as he stared at the PADD before suddenly standing up. “This evening has been satisfying. I bid you a good night, captain.”

Later, much later and too late to act on, Jim incidentally learned that in Vulcan culture, giving permission to write one’s name in High Vulcan was seen as a very intimate way to present affection. In the same way allowing someone to use first name or a nickname among United Earth citizens had significance in marking friendship and closeness, a Vulcan giving someone permission to use their High Vulcan name carried similar connotations but with a little more than friendship implied. Not necessarily romantic intentions, but it could be if approached. Jim was a little hurt Spock hadn’t explicitly stated the importance of the gesture but the two had been wading in shallow waters since Jim’s death and Spock’s resultative near-murder of Khan. They were always teetering on something that shouldn’t happen but equally _should_ have happened.

Now there wasn’t anything to teeter about and the thought made Jim huff wryly. He closed the document with a shaky breath and ordered an away team to come with him to the transporter room. He was the last to reach the transporter room, having taken a detour to hide in Deck Five’s northeast bathroom when a panic attack consumed his mind after Bones’ commed stating he had the cryotube ready for transport. Jim could barely keep down the bile that climbed up his throat when he finally made his way to the team. Everyone was avoiding looking at him, pity deep in their eyes and it made him feel uselessly pathetic.

“Beam us down, Scotty,” he commanded, noting how weak his voice sounded despite the words. Scotty nodded silently and the group beamed down in silent rays of white, immediately greeted by five Vulcans, two of which were Ambassador Spock and Sarek. 

“Greetings, captain,” Sarek said, not a flicker of emotion in his eyes as he stared at the cryotube beside Bones. Anger simmered in Jim’s blood and he fought to keep it down. Vulcans were not emotionless, they simply refuse to express emotions outwardly. He was sure Sarek was feeling something about the situation.

“I’m sorry we have to meet like this,” began Jim, presenting the ta’al with a shaking hand. He immediately lowered his hand with a grimace. “I’m even more sorry that we don’t have much time to mourn with you.” 

“You have done enough for all of us, Captain Kirk,” Sarek replied quietly. That was the only indication that he was affected and it kept Jim’s anger down for now. “I understand the duties of a starship as important as yours. I am grateful you altered your plans to bring my son back to his home.” 

Jim shuddered. This was not Spock’s home. Vulcan with her warm red sand and cracked cliffs against the horizon, with her wide deserts and glorious mountain ranges, was Spock’s home. The _Enterprise_ , host for exploration and scientific discovery, was Spock’s home. Spock had never been to New Vulcan before this. 

Ambassador Spoke spoke up as Jim found he struggled to build an adequate reply to Sarek’s words. “We are pleased you were able to return my younger self to our people.” 

There were more words exchanged, probably formalities and minor discussion on where to go and how soon to engage in the rituals necessary to pass on the _katra_ but Jim could barely hear a thing. His mind was descending, cascading into the darkness brought by the unseeing brown eyes that looked up into Jim’s for the final time. The wind that brushed against his cheek tasted of the final breath that thin pale lips exhaled into Jim’s chest. He could smell the jarring scent of copper that pooled at his feet, verdant green viscous between his fingers. Phaser blasts and explosions rocked the air but Jim’s ears were ringing with shock and fear, bone-chilling fear as he could feel nothing under the hand he had pressed against paling green-stained skin.

“Jim,” he heard in the distance, his own breathing lodged in his throat as he felt his knees weaken. “Snap out of it, kid.”

Jim heaved a breath and turned toward the voice, eyes wide as he caught Bones’. The doctor put a solid hand on Jim’s shoulder and squeezed twice. Jim looked down and found his hands violently shaking, clenching his fist in an attempt to calm down. It didn’t work but he shrugged Bones off his shoulder and followed his away team and the Vulcans toward some Vulcan religious temple where the transfer would be complete.

Jim didn’t understand all the details of the ceremony but he knew it wasn’t anything like Human funerals. Bones and Uhura led him down a corridor and into a side room to dress in proper Vulcan robes. Each officer had different colors denoting not just social status in general but relation to the deceased. Bones wore charcoal black, Uhura wore a deep crimson red, and Jim was draped in olive green. The robes were heavy yet airy on his body and as he fitted himself in the mirror, he wondered if Spock would snort at his vanity. “I refuse to understand why you spend inordinate amounts of time analyzing your reflection, captain,” he had said once when on shore leave a few months ago Jim paused in front of a glass building to check himself out. “Your appearance has not changed drastically since we arrived planet-side from the _Enterprise_ ’s transporter room.”

“You’ve been lookin’?” Jim teased, turning to give Spock a wink. The Vulcan gave him a look that screamed exasperation and he laughed, turning back to the glass as he fixed his hair. “I know my appearance hasn’t changed but unlike _you_ , I can’t control the way my hair falls just by thinking about it.” 

Spock, who had retorted against controlling the way his hair follicles laid on his head multiple times already, simply sighed a Vulcan sigh. “As you were, captain.”

Jim was brought from his memories when Uhura suddenly appeared in his reflection. He turned to look at her and gave what he hoped was a passable comforting smile. Her eyes were wet with tears she refused to shed, arms crossed against her chest. “I’m sorry,” she whispered hoarsely. “I can’t imagine what you must be going through.”

He wasn’t sure what she meant; she used to date Spock, she was his _lover_. They mutually broke up during the two weeks Jim was in a coma but Jim never asked for the details. He knew bits and pieces and could sum it up to Spock being unable to handle his emotions since Vulcan’s demise and neither party wanted to continue something so emotion heavy in the meantime. Nyota Uhura should be feeling the most pain than anyone on the _Enterprise_ and here she was, feeling sorry for Jim whose lamentable behavior after the mission consisted of pathetically burying himself in his room for days after declaring himself emotionally compromised. Bones eventually had to put Jim on medical leave and stab him with a million hypos to combat whatever damage to his body Jim had done thanks to neglect.

(Jim wasn’t doing much damage; he could withstand days without food or water thanks to the superhuman blood running through his veins and that made him sick because how dare he defy death itself and outlive the being meant to outlive _him_.)

“It’s nothing compared to what you must be facing,” he replied. “I hope you know that if you need more time off to heal or whatever I’ll gladly grant you it.”

“I’m fine,” she said and she wasn’t fine but it would have to do.

The trio made their way into the temple’s main hall, followed by the Vulcan priests that would host the ceremony. The cryotube was open and Jim tore his eyes away as they approached, unable to look at the still pale body presented before him. Uhura choked on a sob and covered her mouth, the tears she tried so hard to hold back falling against her dark skin in shimmering trails. Bones visibly paled even though he was the one who put the body in the tube and had to manage its’ temperatures and whatnot during the trip to New Vulcan. He had seen the body many times before this moment but the knowledge that this was the final goodbye struck him just as bad as anyone else. 

Jim eventually gathered the courage to look and could barely even see as tears blurred his vision. He wiped furiously at his eyes and stared down at the body draped in dark brown robes and adorned in silver and gold jewelry against his fingers, arms, and chest. The rings were inscribed with Vulcan while bracelets were etched with Federation Standard. Necklaces were dressed with gems and it took Jim a moment to remember Spock was somewhat royalty in Vulcan culture. Vulcans had long since abolished formal tribe hierarchies in society but Spock’s ancestral clan had heavily influence on the land and society even in modern times thanks to T’Pau and Sarek. Spock’s social isolation by his peers had a lot to do with the fact that he was also seen as tainting a powerful political and social bloodline. Jim wondered if there were some Vulcans who were glad for this event despite Spock being the reason why Vulcan culture was still alive after the Narada Incident.

The blonde wanted to reach out a hand to touch Spock, to feel the cold skin against his fingers and get confirmation that Spock was really gone but he _knew_. Jim knew Spock was gone, lifeless in his arms two weeks ago according to Federation shiptime. Spock was gone and left a blaringly large hole in his heart Jim didn’t even realize Spock had occupied. Maybe that was why Uhura pitied him, pitied Jim for not knowing where he stood with Spock until the other was gone and even still, he could not figure out how much Spock meant to him. It seemed Spock meant too much to even try to quantify. Spock could probably calculate how much down to the ten-thousandth decimal mark but Spock wasn’t here to do that anymore. Spock wasn’t alive to give Jim a theoretical answer to a question that wasn’t based on theory or logic but embedded with experience and emotion.

(Jim stared into his shot glass with a furrowed brow. He turned to the Vulcan with narrowed eyes. “You can calculate anything, right?” Spock nodded with a curious eyebrow raise. “How much do I care about you?” 

There was a pause. “I cannot give a definite answer without all the evidence presented to me, captain.”

“You think I haven’t shown you enough evidence?” The blonde sipped at his drink, eyes staring at Spock from above the glass rim. Spock’s eyes darted to the side before he turned to his own untouched glass on the table, chess match long deserted.

“I believe you have not shown me the evidence needed to come to a satisfactory conclusion.”)

The point was that Uhura knew where Spock stood in her life, she could accept this. Jim himself even knew where Spock stood in his life when he died in the reaction chamber. They were friends, _good_ friends, and Spock finally acknowledged the fact and it made Jim’s heart soar during his final beats of life. After that, he didn’t know anymore. Things had changed, lines had been crossed but he didn’t know which ones and he would never know which ones. 

The lead Vulcan priest sprayed sand onto Spock’s glumily still body, specks of red against dull pale green skin. Spock looked as if he was sleeping but he wasn’t. His face was too calm, too void. Sure, Vulcans didn’t consciously (or unconsciously) emote but in his sleep, Spock’s brows would furrow and sometimes he frowned a Vulcan frown. Jim knew from spending hours at Spock’s side in Medbay since the five-year mission began and Jim knew too that in his sleep he was prone to emotional outbursts on his face. He could hear Spock’s not-laughter from when Jim discovered from Spock that he had recently developed a habit of snuggling his blankets in his sleep.

The three other priests began chanting in High Vulcan, sounds that Jim knew humans were not able to pronounce but he still wished he could understand. Uhura’s crying got worse though so he was somewhat grateful that he couldn’t. He zoned out at some point, trying his best not to remember the sore pains in his arms or the green wetness drenching his legs as he held the body that lay before him in his arms and sobbed for a reality that wouldn’t be his. A reality where Spock lived through the wound and woke up in sickbay chiding Jim for being stupid enough to be in the line of fire.

Uhura nudged Jim out of his thoughts and he came to with a jump, turning to her with raised eyebrows and confusion. Her gaze was contemplative and it irked Jim. “They want you to place the sehlat fur on his body and close the case for the final extraction.”

Little of that made sense but Jim nodded repeatedly until he shook his head to regather his thoughts and turned to the Vulcan priests. One had a giant pelt in hand and passed it along to Jim with a bowed head. He took it cautiously and walked closer to where Spock laid, closing blue eyes as he draped the overly warm fur over his deceased friend. _This isn’t goodbye_ , he thought, touching Spock’s cheek before he closed the lid and stepped back in line with his friends. The priests circled the tube and chanted a chorus, each one lifting their hands up to the sky every so often. Jim wanted to ask what exactly was happening, but was too stunned by the finality of everything to even conjure up a coherent sentence.

When the priests finished, Sarek stepped forward and took something from their hands. Sarek seemed to finally be emotional, probably struck by the fact that all his living loved ones were dead. It made something in Jim’s gut churn; seeing emotional Vulcans would never sit right with him. The elder then turned to Jim and held out whatever the priests had passed along to him.

“This is Spock’s _katra_ ,” he stated in the silence left by the ceremony. “I believe it would be most illogical to hold possession of this when Spock and I parted on less amicable terms.” The blue sphere glowed in Sarek’s hand and he motioned for Jim to take it. “I misspoke when I thanked your crew for returning Spock. This is not his home. His _katra_ belongs with his new home in which New Vulcan is not and never will be.”

Jim took it cautiously. “I’m sorry but I don’t understand what this is.”

“It’s Spock’s consciousness,” Uhura supplied with a wet voice, “Well, a mixture of consciousness and memory. After the _kr’aleiu_ is complete as it is now, the _katra_ can be stored in a Katric Ark and shared with the family. If this happens then the remaining family members must take a memory to share and keep alive despite the Vulcan’s death.” Her voice withered here and she cleared her throat to continue. “If there is no one living then the _katra_ is buried in a sacred memoriam where it dissolves and the land absorbs these memories as its’ own. The burial and absorption is how Vulcan-that-was kept a psychic connection to the psyches of all Vulcans." 

“Oh.” Jim could feel the tears in his eyes again and he didn’t bother with trying to stop them from falling. His eyes were glued to the glowing blue crystal in his hands and he took a deep breath to calm his voice for his next question. He knew he was still shaky when he asked. “Ambassador Sarek, have you taken a memory yet?” 

Sarek bowed his head. “You should be the first as the closest in relation to my son.”

“But you’re his biological dad and he,” Jim motioned to Ambassador Spock, “is _literally_ Spock. I am--was,” Jim choked on the correction, “his captain.”

“You are dressed in green,” one priest interjected in heavily accented Standard. “Please take a memory. It is his wish for you to be the first.” 

Jim wanted to ask more questions but he was on the edge of a breakdown and didn’t think he would be able to access a memory later if he didn’t do so now. The man closed his eyes and took a single deep breath, breathing in time to the pulse he felt from the Katric Ark. It took a moment but a wisp caught his consciousness and he grabbed for it, mentally opening it until it unfurled into delicious color and vibrancy. Jim knew Vulcans’ eyesight allowed them to see better, what with having blaringly bright suns and no moon to light the night, but he didn’t realize how effervescent colors could be for Spock.

The memory played out as a familiar situation: a shore leave taken at Yorktown after weeks spent charting a new Beta sector system. Jim remembered this shore leave fondly; he spent most of his time with Spock as they explored the latest tech advances and Spock got overly excited over dirt particles cultivated in the botany labs. In the memory, Jim realized that Spock was feeling something. He couldn’t tell what it was but then Spock turned and he saw himself looking up at Spock. Jim’s own breath was _stolen_ at the sight. Did he really look up at Spock like that? Like Spock was the sun and Jim was a sunflower who couldn’t help but lean towards the sun’s rays as he was born to do? On top of that, in Spock’s eyes Jim’s eyes were irregularly blue, more than his eyes already were thanks to space radiation. Jim’s eyes were _unreal_ , a celestial blue he couldn’t find any word to describe. Memory Jim smiled and there was something beating harder in Spock’s side. A warmth crept into Spock’s cheeks. It was a blush, Jim realized, and he was sure he was back to crying even if he couldn’t consciously notice it at the moment.

“Where to first, commander?” Memory Jim looked out into the crowd, eyes scanning before turning back to Spock. “We could head over to the tech center; I heard they’re working on new holotech that might tickle your toes.”

“I cannot understand why Starfleet would invest in creating technology that would titillate the user’s extremities.” Spock didn’t feel confused so Jim knew the Vulcan was playing around with him here. It’s something of a comfort to know Spock did sometimes understand and merely acted like he didn’t for Jim’s humor. “Also, might I remind you that Vulcans are not ticklish.”

Memory Jim laughed. “Ticklish isn’t an emotion, Spock.” He turned back to the crowd with a hum. “We could just walk around a bit and see what strikes our fancy.”

Here Spock was confused and he stiffened. There was a flash of worry rushing through the memory before it was quickly stifled. “I will not allow us to traverse this starbase when it could bring harm to you, captain. You should have informed me of the violence that occurs.”

Jim scowled. “What? Oh,” he laughed again and turned to Spock with a warm smile. Warmth bled through the memory again. “It’s a Human phrase for something that appeals to you.”

“I see.” Spock nodded once, the warmth curling into something undefined. Jim couldn’t tell if he was unable to define it himself or if since Spock couldn’t define it at the time the memory wouldn’t allow him to. “I must admit I can already see what may ‘strike my fancy’, captain.”

“It’s Jim when we’re not on duty.” Memory Jim waved a passing hand. “Anyway, what is it? I’m three-hundred percent down to go if you are." 

“It is statistically impossible to be three-hundred percent ‘down’ to travel somewhere.”

“You know what I mean,” the human said with a roll of his eyes. “C’mon, tell me! Else we’ll go to the tech hall and I’ll bore you as I get one of the ensigns to tell me the dirty secrets.”

Spock smiled. He didn’t visibly do so, Jim himself definitely remembered Spock not moving his face a single centimeter but Jim could feel in this memory that Spock really wanted to smile but habit kept him from doing so. “That would be a satisfying endeavor.” 

Jim balked. “Are you supporting me harassing ensigns for information? Spock, have I _corrupted_ you?”

“Negative, captain; I am merely stating that gathering new information on technology that can improve our PADDs’ holographic radar imagings and electronic presentation models is a desirable task to accomplish.”

The blonde blinked twice and grinned widely, clapping a hand on Spock’s arm. The warmth returned full force with the addition of a few faint impressions of joy, surprise, and excitement. Those impressions left the instant Jim pulled his hand away and began his walk toward the direction of the Yorktown Techcenter. “Let’s go before security decides I’m a threat to Yorktown’s well being and locks me up in the ship.”

“Why would Yorktown assume you are a threat?”

Jim turned to wink at Spock. “My charms are deadly, Spock; too bad you’re immune.” The memory presented Jim with Spock’s thoughts on the manner. _I am perhaps not as immune as you may believe_. “Besides, I seem to be a living magnet for danger and destruction. It’s only logical to think my potent ass would incidentally bring along an army of Klingons.”

The memory faded into nothing but he did recall immediately getting in a scuffle with Orion traders not too long after leaving Yorktown. Jim opened his eyes and felt the drying tear streaks on his cheeks, sniffling before passing the Ark back to Sarek. The Vulcan nodded his head in thanks and slowed his own breathing to match the glowing rhythm of the Ark. Uhura gently squeezed his arm in support. “It’s considered rude to ask what memory you saw but I hope you cried because it made you happy.”

A watery smile slipped onto Jim’s lips. “I cried because it made _him_ happy.”

Uhura unleashed a full smile, bottom lip quivering before she falls into a silent sob. Jim pulled her into his arms and listened to her gentle crying. He stroked at her hair, his chin against her head as he closed his eyes while rubbing at her back. She pulled away in silence when it was her turn to hold the Katric Ark and when she passed it to Bones with a warm smile on her lips, Jim figured this was probably the best way to end his damn mopping and get his head on straight. Spock wouldn’t want him to mourn like this, Spock showed him a happy memory, showed him the depths of his affection for Jim to make him remember what good they had between them. It wouldn’t do any good for Jim to continue depressing himself by recalling that fateful day like a mantra he was loath to disavow himself from.

When Bones passed the Ark back to Jim, tears in his eyes that he covered up with a grunted cough, the young captain turned back to Sarek. “Thank you having us on such short notice. We tried to come as fast as we could.”

“I understand,” he said warmly. “I am simply grateful my son was able to find a family when ostracized from his own.”

Jim was sure that if he was right of mind he would’ve a load more to say about that particular comment but he was mentally and emotionally drained. Spock’s Katric Ark sat heavy in his hand and he simply wanted to take the fattest nap possible back on the ship. The trio said they formal thank you’s and goodbyes to the priests and other Vulcans in the temple before making their way under the desert dual suns to the _Enterprise_. Bones was silent until Scotty beamed them aboard and he stopped Jim with a hand to his shoulder.

“Are you okay?” he asked, eyes darkened with concern. Jim looked down at the crystal in hand, noting it had faded to silver. 

“I’m fine,” was his short reply before he shook his head with a sigh. “No. I’m not fine but I’m better. I’ll be okay.”

The doctor kept his concerned gaze locked on Jim before letting up with a shoulder squeeze. “I know with him gone it’s a little weird realizing how even if he wasn’t in the same room as you his presence still had an impact. I mean, duh, he was our First Officer but damn.” Jim nodded in silence. “And it’s still weird going on the bridge--you haven’t been there since you left for being ‘emotional comprised’ and I shunned you from returning, but seeing some other officer up there at the science desk wracks my nerves. I keep thinkin’ that’s Spock’s station, that’s where Spock does his Vulcan logic mind games and gives Jim the next impossible statics to beat.”

Jim steeled, remembering the few days after the tragic mission. How he unconsciously called for Spock to deliver a report on gene splicing for these two plants that could create an important biochemical for medicinal purposes and silence reached him instead. It was like everyone on the bridge had froze in shock, scared to snap Jim into the reality where Spock would never answer his call again. Bones was the one to deliver the report, only on the bridge because Uhura had called for him to take Jim away because Jim was frankly having a low level meltdown. He completely broke down when he turned to see Bones, noted the empty science station, and remembered how the past two days hadn’t been a nightmare but was simply the reality he had to learn to live in.

“Did I ever tell you his last words to me?” whispered Jim, stepping from the transporters with sardonic laughter in his breath. “When he pushed me out of the way, took the bullet in the heart for me, in his _heart_ , Bones!” 

“I know.” 

“He’s so fucking stupid,” he whined, leaning against the wall as he laughs. “Spock is the biggest fucking moron in the world, this one _and_ the next. I can survive getting shot in the side, he _can’t_. Stupid heroics.” 

“He can survive getting shot in the chest and you can’t but you know you’d do the exact same for him.”

Jim couldn’t deny and he sent Bones a dry smile in reply. “His last words were ‘thank you’. Thank me for what? For getting him killed?”

“Jim.”

“I brought him planetside with me because I was too stubborn to stay on board and I know as much as anyone that he refuses to let me go planetside without him. Because I was greedy and wanted him with me. I wasn’t thinking, too caught up in my own damn head, my own emotions, and got him _murdered_.” Jim laughed and it didn’t feel comfortable in any manner. “During one of our chess matches we chatted about how we would die. I said I would die in some fantastical mishap, he said I already died in a fantastical mishap and he would rather me not do so again. I told him then he would die in some fantastical mishap trying to save _my_ ass from another fantastical mishap and he agreed. But this wasn’t some fantastical mishap. It was just me being selfish and dumb and he thanked me for it." 

“Jim, you know he probably thanked you for more than that.”

“Like what? All I’ve done is drag him into dangerous situation after dangerous situation from the moment we met!”

“He’s the one who wanted to go, who swore to protect you until his literal dying breath. You wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for him.” 

“And it shouldn’t be that way!” Jim was yelling now, anger blazed in his eyes as sorrow clenched his fists. “It should be me! I should be groveling in Sickbay right now, whining about having to take another bullet for him and he should be telling me it was only logical like the smartass he is and I should laugh and act like I’m hurt by him being logical when I’m emotional but I’m not upset; I’m just so happy he’s alive and I can keep seeing him first thing in the morning for breakfast and last thing before bed and I can’t keep acting like this sorrowful fucker but it hurts knowing I can’t hear him in the bathroom and if I leave my room he won’t be on the other side of the door. I just want to--”

Bones’ eyes shifted and it cut Jim off from his rant. “Jim,” he started hesitantly, “I’m gonna ask a personal question and I swear if you fucking flip out on me I’m taking you to Medbay to calm down.” Jim narrowed his eyes. “Do you genuinely want to die?” 

Jim scowled and turned his gaze to his feet. “I’m not suicidal if that’s what you’re asking. I mean yeah, I’d rather be the one dead just because we all know my ass was gonna die before his, all of us were supposed to because _he_ was supposed to have a long lifespan. But I’m not going to do anything about it. _Kaiidth_ as Spock would say.” 

“I figured but I had to be sure.” Bones sighed and rubbed his hands down his face. “That wasn’t the question I wanted to ask though. Jim,” he paused here, careful to keep eye contact, “do you love Spock?” 

“Of course I do; he’s my friend.” 

“I’m not asking that, we all fucking love him on this ship; do you _love_ him?” 

Jim barked a hoarse laugh. “We weren’t like that, Bones.” 

“I didn’t ask if you two were together, Jim, stop being an ass and just answer the damn question.” the blonde rolled his eyes. “I’ll make it blunt for you if you need it: do you have romantic feelings for your dead first officer?” 

“Bones, don’t.” 

“You do.” 

“ _Bones_.” 

The doctor laughed and frantically ran hands through his hair. “You fucking fell in love with the damn hobgoblin and didn’t tell him at all?”

“Would you expect me to destroy the friendship we’ve built since my death by showing up at his doorstep like ‘Oh Spock, by the way, I have a really big crush on you and by crush I mean I’d like you to fuck my brains out and then wake up in the morning with me for the rest of our lives’?” He scoffed. “I already said I’m not _suicidal._ ” 

“Well, sorry; you’re not usually one to hide from your feelings like that damn bastard was!”

“You are _not_ going to admonish me and curse Spock out while I’m holding his fucking consciousness in my hands right now,” snapped Jim as his voice grew tense with anger. “I’ll get over myself; I always have and I always will.”

Bones made a face that didn’t sit well with Jim. “I would be the first to believe you and you know it but you’ve been reacting differently and I don’t think you ever will get over it. That’s why I had to ask.”

“Spock was,” Jim paused and looked down at the last piece of Spock he could ever have. “He _is_ different. I thought I, you know, had _those_ feelings with people before but he really was my first.” 

“If you weren’t so goddamn blind you would realize that you were his, too.” 

Jim opened his mouth and found himself at a loss for words. The Katric Ark in hand pulsed and he found himself unpromptedly washed into another memory. The setting was familiar, Jim’s quarters, both seated at a table with a chess board between them. He couldn’t tell which day this was, but when his memory self spoke up he remembered it clearly as the memory played through. 

“So,” the captain started, crossing his arms after moving his rook to the second level. Spock didn’t look up from the board, eyebrows furrowed with concentration. In the memory, Spock was attempting to calculate Jim’s next move and parry it with his own but the logic minded Vulcan couldn’t figure out what was coming next. “How is the work at the labs going?”

Spock did look up at this, curiosity in his gaze. “The experiments in lab 4 are proficient and while there was a miscalculation from one of the ensigns in lab 3, I was able to rectify the situation and situate the experiment on the track it was meant to be on.”

“I’m glad.” Spock was confused on why Jim was glad about the science department being on track but he assumed that if the science department was not reporting trouble then Jim’s work load with the _Enterprise_ decreased.

Silence melded between the two as they exchanged plays. Spock decided to respond as he caught Jim’s leg fidgeting under the table. “How is captaincy treating you in turn?”

It seemed to be the correct thing to say as Jim’s face lit up. Spock made a mental reminder to ask how Jim is faring more often. “It’s been okay, you know, Scotty is back to formally begging me to give clearance on refactoring the fusion particles down in engineering. I’d love to give it to him, but I can’t find any way to convince the admirals that we need to reprogram the partilizing system with the fusion engines.” Jim moved a knight to capture Spock’s and Spock quickly captured it with a pawn. “Ah, damn, Spock, I needed that.” He shook his head with a chuckle that Spock didn’t feel was very humorous and looked to the board to find his king was open. He stared at Jim’s fingers as the man moved his rook into the white king’s line of sight. “Check.” 

Spock frowned. “That was an easy trap.” 

“Yet, you fell for it.” A flush started to fill Spock’s cheeks at Jim’s wink but the Vulcan regained control of his vascular systems and willed it away before it could be seen. Jim leaned back with a smile. “It’s okay, Spock, I kind of distracted you with my small talk.”

“Vulcans do not get distracted.”

Jim smirked and carefully watched Spock move his king from check, positioning it on the third level. The blonde’s smirk turned into a scowl and satisfying mirth began to fill Spock’s memory. Spock found himself thinking that he would wish to bring out all these emotions and more from Jim over the next few years of the expedition. That unknown feeling from the previous memory ached in his chest and Jim figured Spock just didn’t know what it was. The game continued in silence and Jim already knew how the game ended--he lost--but knowing Spock’s thoughts gave him so much insight into whatever happened behind those dark brown eyes.

Whenever Jim captured a white piece, Spock felt wonder and respect as each move made it harder for Spock to win. Whenever Spock captured a black piece, he felt satisfaction and amusement on Jim’s behalf. When he eventually won with an elated _checkmate_ , Spock’s elation from winning was easily overlaid with a swarm of affection by Jim’s extravagant show of being upset he lost. It was interesting seeing how Spock felt about the situation, feeling how much affection he had for Jim in this minor moments. 

Spock watched Jim flounder around and noticed he was making excuses for staying in Spock’s quarters for as long as he could. There was a flicker of a thought in Spock’s head, a small flash designating his illogical want to ask his captain to stay longer. It was not as if they had any reason to stay in each other’s presence; Jim had Alpha shift in 5.3 hours that definitely would not insure him sleeping the requisite hours for optimal sleep and Spock has an early pre-bridge shift visit in 3.8 hours to lab 5 to ensure the Sephrus VI carnivorous Hibiscus rosa-sinensis’ petal molecules were decomposing in an orderly fashion.

It would be illogical to ask for a few more hours of company but Spock understood the desire to ask.

“If you wish for one more game,” the Vulcan began, an uncomfortable feeling consuming his chest. It took a moment for Spock to identify what the feeling was and when he did, his brow furrowed. He found it odd how he was anxious about what Jim’s answer could be. There was an 87.32% chance Jim would say yes but the 12.68% that remained lent Spock reason to be anxious.

“Are you sure? I wouldn’t want to impose.”

Spock smiled inwardly. “You never impose, captain.”

“Jim, Spock. I’m Jim when we’re off duty.”

“You never impose, Jim.” he corrected, making sure to lock eyes with the blonde. He always found himself shocked at how vibrant blue his captain’s eyes were; sometimes he had to look away to keep any physical reaction from occurring before he had the time to control it. 

Spock could feel the tension building in Jim’s shoulders and he considered being worried but noted how the tension this time was not inherently negative. No, Jim was thrilled he could tell that much, but he didn’t understand why any possible tension was there. His eyes traced the curves of the other’s face, watching the way his throat bobbed when he took in a breath and licked his pink flushed lips.

_Oh._  

Spock looked at his hands as Jim scrambled to reset the board, trying his best to control the flush that began to pester his cheeks. The captain knocked over a black bishop in his haste to ready the next game and Spock reached for it simultaneously, assuming since the piece was closest to him it would only make sense for him to pick it up. When their fingers brushed reaching for the same piece (like some cheesy romance novel, Jim noted), Spock pulled away as possible with a tight line drawn on his lips.

There was a spark Jim hadn’t felt at the time but Spock definitely felt something. It was a gentle wave, calm and collected until crashing against the shore of his mind and drowning him in emotions he couldn’t decipher. Spock’s chest hurt from the intensity that knocked his breath away and his side throbbed from the stress of it all. It threatened to drag Spock off into ocean as the waves left the shore, seductive ripples leaving wet impressions in his mind. 

Jim remembered that Spock had suddenly claimed a need for meditation which only made Jim think Spock wasn’t interested after all. Now as he lived through Spock’s memory, the man realized how very wrong he was with that assumption. Spock was _very_ interested, struggling to control the subconscious blood flow that diverted south. There was something about Jim’s skin, the feeling of touching something so forbidden that Spock had been unconsciously craving for so long, that ignited a fire in his heart and between his legs.

Meditation was absolutely necessary, Spock needed to get a grip on his frazzled emotions before he did something he would regret and break at least a handful of regulations in the process. The vibrant blue in Jim’s eyes seemed to dull at his dejected agreement that sounded more like resignation. Spock felt the urge to apologize while explaining his behavior but he couldn’t find the words to do so. That caused a panic inside; the Vulcan rarely could not find the words to express his thoughts despite his plentiful vocabulary in the many languages he spoke. 

The memory faded to bring Jim back to the present, gasping as he found Bones shaking his shoulder with concern etched in his gaze. He looked down at the Ark in hand and stroked it gently with a sigh. “I got another memory,” he said quietly, walking out the transporter room as he struggled to process the information the memory gave him. 

All this time Jim thought Spock would have abhorred him for having any romantic inclinations but Spock was practically the Vulcan equivalent of head-over-heels in love with him. 

Bones halted Jim’s trek toward the bridge and forced him down to sickbay to get his psychic levels reassessed. “Sulu has had the comm for a few days now, letting him have a couple more hours after you just sent off your not-but-should-have-been boyfriend isn’t going to hurt anyone.” The doctor sat Jim down on a biobed and crossed his arms with a seriousness that made Jim bite his tongue before retorting. “You, me, and Uhura were expected to retrieve one memory each because we’re human and psi-null. We don’t have the extra neurons and mental capacity to harness someone else’s consciousness or their memories. You can see where I’m going with this.”

“Either I’m psi-null and about to go insane from having Spock’s memories and _katra_ bleed into my consciousness or I’m not as psi-null as previously thought.”

“Exactly.” 

The assessment itself was simple; CAT, EEG, and MEG scans before two times using the MRI machine with and without Spock’s Katric Ark on his person. Jim was an energetic guy and it took all he had to stop squirming between each scan. The final scan, the Psyche Expansion and Neural Synapse scan, PENS for short (or The Sixth Sense scan for non-medics) was the most tedious and Jim was not enthusiastic about going through it again. The scan mapped and charted the brain’s psyche for psi triggers but the test itself was such a daunting task that it usually knocked out psi-null beings as the neural struggle was too much to stay conscious. 

Jim actually lasted a good while before sharp pain drilled through his skull and he passed out trying to take a step from the machine. He woke up to Bones scanning him with a tricorder and raise a careful eyebrow to ask the question he kinda already knew the answer to. “You’re not psi-null, kid, but don’t expect yourself to be reading people’s minds.” He pulled away with a frown. “You’re still low on the voodoo scale, just easily susceptible to direct psychic interference. Might need to take some lessons on whatever those telepathic and telekinetic Federation members do to protect their minds.”

“This is going on my official medical record, right? The Admirals are going to have a field day knowing my brain is psi-sensitive,” he groaned and turned his face into the sterile pillow. “Why now though; I’ve never been before.”

Bones was silent for a moment too long and Jim turned over to watch him. “It may be a result of the blood transfusion and cell regeneration we did on you with Khan’s blood,” the doctor started with a scowl. “This is new territory; I’ve never dealt with bringing someone back from death cause by heavy radiation until you.”

“I knew I was your first something, Bones.”

“You think you’re cheeky,” he huffed but laughed anyway. It was over a year since Jim’s death and coma—one Terran year spent in recovery planetside while the _Enterprise_ was fixed up and 4 Terran months up in space on the five year mission—but Bones still got uncomfortable talking about Jim dying. The blonde figured it would never be a comfortable topic. “When rebuilding the parts of your brain that were dying after you flatlined, the regeneration could have either triggered your brain to be psi-conscious or created neurons whose synapses are strong enough to build that psi-conscious layer in your head.”

“I like the former option more, it makes it sound like my brain has always been able to be psi-sensitive I just need the trigg—“ his words came to a halt as he thought back to Delta Vega with Ambassador Spock and the mind meld. “It’s got to be the former, I’ve been connected psychically before to a Vulcan. He was able to share memories with me and I accepted it pretty well, gigantic headache aside. I didn’t get retested for psi-sensitivity after Narada or Khan because why would those events suddenly make me psi-conscious? They shouldn’t, unless it was dormant for me.”

“You _melded_ with a Vulcan and never told me?”

“I was kind of busy trying to save the world from Spock’s stupidly logical plan and then the opportunity to say something never popped up. Sorry.” Jim smiled sheepishly and winced when a dull pain rang through his head. “Fuck, how hard did I hit my head when I fell?”

“You fainted and it was the least graceful thing ever. Wish I got a holo of it.” the captain scowled at his doctor who only grinned in response. “You hit it hard but your skull is thick so no serious or lasting damage. Let me give you painkillers and let you get rest in your quarters. You’re still on medical leave by the way.” He turned to grab a hypospray and Jim started to peel himself from the blankets he has sweated through. “Hey! Sit your ass back down, doctor’s orders.”

“I’ll pull rank.”

“And _I’ll_ pull rank back because you’re under my watch while on medical leave and your captaincy is temporarily halted until I see fit.” He jabbed the hypo into Jim’s neck and the blonde hissed a curse under his breath as he winced. “Ungrateful brat.”

“Unruly doctor. Maybe I should promote Carol to CMO; she’d make nice with me.”

Bones didn’t bother with a reply and simply turned back to his tricorder as Jim untangled himself and straightened his clothes. He remembered the robes he was wearing and the events of the day came back to him in a flash. Gut wrenching sorrow took hold of his body and he sat back down on the bed as nausea consumed him. “Where’s Spock’s Katric Ark?”

“Put it in your corridors.” brown eyes turned to Jim with pity. He seemed to notice that the reality of everything had come crashing down on Jim’s shoulders and he reached out to pat him. “Hey, it’s gonna be okay. I can’t see what reason you’d want romance with that damn fool but he made you happy and I hate how he’s made you unhappy, too. You have his memories and soul now, and don’t even get me started on the science voodoo shit that went into that, but you have him still. He isn’t gone forever.”

Jim nodded a silent thanks and worked his way up to his corridors, ignoring the ensigns that stared at the weird robes draped on his body or the sad looks random crew members sent him if they caught him down the hall. He punched in the code for his quarters and once inside, easily found the Ark crystal on his desk. He wanted to put it in Spock’s room but as he stepped into their shared bathroom and stared at that closed door, hesitation filled his mind. He didn’t know if the room had been cleared out, he didn’t know what was going to be on the other side of the door. Jim could only hope it was exactly as how Spock left it. 

When he opened the door, he found Spock’s room hadn’t changed a bit. It was still lingering with a spicy scent from meditation incense the Vulcan was using in the morning before the mission that took his life. Jim closed his eyes and took a deep breath, opening them to examine Spock’s room more. They didn’t play chess games in his quarters, mostly because Jim didn’t want to be encroaching in Spock’s space. He scanned the room, noting the red and brown clothes dressing the walls along with two swords Jim guessed were Vulcan in origin. A meditation cushion sat near the desk across from Spock’s neatly made bed, which Jim kind of wanted to lay in. He wanted to find out if he could still smell Spock, if maybe there was just a little bit of him left in just scent than anything else. 

He was reminded of the Katric Ark and tried to find a proper place for it to reside. Spock’s desk—which still had a low level PADD pile on it—was mostly clear, only a statue of a figure Jim didn’t recognize standing in the corner. He placed the crystal by the statue and took one last look in the room before heading back to his quarters to find clothes to dress in for a shower. 

Jim didn’t leave his quarters until Alpha shift had dinner, hashing away at forms and files he technically wasn’t supposed to be working on. No one was going to bite his neck off for trying to find ample distraction from the events of the past two weeks and today especially. He went to the mess hall with a PADD in hand and his communicator in the other, brow furrowed as he analyzed a request for a molecule separator down in the bioengineering labs. 

The bridge crew was overly joyous at his arrival. “Captain,” Sulu smiled with a hand at Jim’s shoulder as he sat next to the botanist. “Glad to see you eating a good old cheeseburger.”

“Me too,” laughed Jim as he looked out at his senior crew members. “Thank you all for dealing with me. I could have done better with the mourning process but it’s still so hard to believe. So yeah, thanks again for being kickass while your captain is a headass.”

Chekov grinned. “It is a pleasure to work for you, captin! You lost someone wery wery special and you deserve the time to mourn.”

“Plus, we weren’t in any emergencies in the meantime, just traveling to New Vulcan to share the news,” Uhura pointed out with a warm smile. “I just hope you’re feeling better, Jim.”

“He’s feeling better alright.” the table turned to watch Scotty make his way to join them. “He took the time today to deny my request for twenty-five more fusion particles!”

“You’re gonna blow up the ship overloading the engines while the core is running on radiated power.” Jim waved a passing hand. “Besides I sent approval for ten max and hopefully the request will go through and we can pick it up at the next starbase.” 

Scotty’s jaw dropped and he looked like he would have given Jim a hug if the situation was dire enough. Jim nodded once and took a bite from his burger with pleasure blossoming in his chest. Somehow, now that he had to let Spock go he found it a little easier to find happiness in the little things with his senior crew. They weren’t too pitiful like the rest of the crew, they didn’t beat around the bush when discussing some points he had missed while locking himself up in his quarters. Even though Bones still had him on medical leave, Jim went to check on Beta shift after dinner and resituate himself with the bridge crew here.

Afterwards, he trekked back to his room with contentment in his eyes and warmth in his chest. Sure he still felt the weight of Spock’s death on his shoulders but with his crew at his side and Spock’s memories only a door away, Jim figured he could handle the next wrench thrown in the socket called his life. And of course, after he settled on that conclusion and got to work on sending a report to Starfleet and prepare for their next mission to an M-class planet, he was faced with the biggest wrench of them all.

“Captain?”

The blonde swerved in his chair with a cry, the chair collapsing as he struggled to stay on his feet. He reached for his comm with a quickness and scanned his room, looking for the sound. “No, no, no,” he muttered under his breath as he squeezed his eyes shut and tried to calm his panic. “You are hearing things; you want him to be here but he’s not. He’s dead, Jim; Spock is dead.”

Blue eyes opened hesitantly and Jim positively screamed, scrambling backward until he hit the bulkhead with a slam. Pain rang through his head but he could barely concentrate on it as the figure before him arched a careful eyebrow. He covered his face with his hands and tried to control his breathing but found it hard to do as his head continued to throb and sharp pain sizzled into the back of his neck. 

“This has to be some elaborate trick my yeoman did as an attempt to cheer me up.”

“Why would I be used in an attempt to humor you, Captain?” 

“Don’t.” Jim raised a hand in protest. “Don’t fake this. This hologram needs to end; where is the projector?” 

“Hologram? Captain, are you well?” 

Jim pressed himself into the wall as if he could melt into it as this hallucination stepped forward. “This has to be an effect of taking in another memory, fuck! I need to call Bones.” 

“Taking in another memory.” The hallucination frowned, hands clasped behind it’s back like it was normal. It looked normal, dressed in science blues and regulation black slacks with the golden trim of First Officer on the sleeves. Jim was going to pester Bones to scan him for _every_ fucking thing psi-sensitive people are prone toward. “Have I come to my physical life’s end?” 

“Have you—are you asking me if you’re _dead_ right after I just sent you off to the Vulcan afterlife?” Jim groaned into his hands. “This is it, I’m insane. I cracked. Space has ruined my sexy brain cells.” 

The hallucination didn’t answer immediately, dark eyes staring at Jim as if _he_ was the enigma. “You are psi-conscious.” 

“Only Bones and I know that so okay, yes; this is my brain hallucinating in an attempt to reach peace with your death. Nice.”

“Your thoughts are broadcasting at an extremely obnoxious level, captain.” thin lips turned down with minor disgust. “Any being with psychic abilities would notice.” 

Jim felt woozy. “How would I know my thoughts are broadcasting, what the fuck? Okay, I’m calling Bones right now.” 

Bones answered grumpily after four rings. “Jim, I swear to fuck; it’s 2 AM, please give me a good reason to have answered your call.” 

“I’m hallucinating.” 

“You’re sleep deprived from crying over your damn boyfriend for the past week; go to sleep.” 

The shock that slammed onto the hallucination’s face stalled Jim’s next words. Bones hung up before Jim could find his words again. Calling twice seemed like overkill and maybe Bones was right, he needed some sleep. 

“Boyfriend?”

“Bones is joking,” Jim laughed hoarsely, feeling his cheeks blush even though he was talking to his overly active imagination. “I mean we both know you’re not my boyfriend.”

“Affirmative.”

“And I didn’t cry over you all week.”

“I would hope not." 

“Good.”

“Captain, if I may speak freely?” Jim scowled. Of course his hallucination would be so accurate to the point of asking to speak freely when it didn’t even exist to be breaking any command rules by openly speaking. He nodded and the hallucination’s arms fell to its’ side. “I can surmise from your words thus far that I have been killed in action. I must admit the fact confuses me as I fell into a Vulcan healing trance when my blood levels fell below sixty-six percent and my pain receptors were unresponsive to my command to cease transmitter reception. Vulcans do not die in healing trances.”

“I am _so_ fucked up.” Jim whispered, pulling at his hair with a hiss. “I felt you die in my arms. I felt your skin get cold and your heart stopped beating under my hand. Why is my brain not letting me accept this fact?”

The hallucination quirked a not-smile. “In a healing trance, Vulcans cease all bodily functions to focus on individual organs for regeneration and healing. It is a timely process but Vulcans can last days without a beating heart as long as we systematically continue blood flow and filtering. It is damage to the brain that kills us, captain.”

Jim crossed his arms. “So, are you telling me you are not dead?”

“Negative; only that I did not die because of my healing trance.”

“So what killed you?”

“That is a question whose answer I do not know. I have not gathered the requisite data to calculate how my body came to pass.” brown eyes stared past Jim’s face. “I am most curious as to how my _katra_ can exist in this plane of existence without a physical form.”

“You’re in a Katric Ark crystal.”

The perhaps-not-a-hallucination raised two eyebrows. “My father approved of extraction? An unexpected act from him. I would expect him to bury my _katra_ so New Vulcan may continue traditions from Vulcan-that-was.”

“He gave the crystal to us if it’s any consolation.”

“Please take me to it.”

“You can’t float through walls and shit like a ghost?”

“Part of my _katra_ has physically manifested in this level of existence; it obeys the laws of physics in this world. I cannot float through walls without additional help. Furthermore,” he gave Jim an unamused look. “Ghosts are not real and cannot expel feces even if they were.”

Jim grinned and motioned for Spock for follow him through the bathroom into the abandoned quarters. “I haven’t cleaned it out yet; I don’t think anyone really wants to. I still haven’t assigned a First Officer but I’m sure my higher ups will be on my ass about that soon enough.” 

Spock wasn’t really listening, eyes trained on the statue at his desk. “ _Shariel_.” His voice was soft but careful. “The Vulcan god of death carries many meanings for my people but I brought this statue with me aboard the _Enterprise_ to remind myself that all life ends in death. The body may decay first but no one will escape _kr’aleiu._ For all Vulcans, our consciousness will bleed into the land and let Vulcan live another day.”

“What about you? You’re in a Katric Ark, well, should be at least.”

“Katric Arks merely preserve the _katra_ to keep from decay when one has no body to manifest in.” Spock’s eyes turn to Jim. “You said you have taken memories from my Ark?”

“Yeah.”

“You should be unable to share more than one of my memories during _katra-khynna_. You are human. Even if you are psi-conscious the psychic force of taking on a Vulcan’s memories without prior preparation should cause harm to your psyche.” his brow furrowed more. “This does little to explain why I am semi-corporeal.” 

“Maybe I accidentally brought you here?”

The look Spock gave him made Jim want to take back his words. “You do not possess the power to release me from a Katric Ark and reanimate my _katra_ into a semi-corporeal state.” He turned back to the statue with curious eyes. “If I did not die in a Vulcan healing trance then _kr’aleiu_ commenced with the incorrect conclusion that I was trapped in my body because of a mistake in my bodily management. A mistake which I can assure you I am incapable of making.” He frowned here. “I can assume some Vulcans may have guessed I failed in my trance given my human heritage and did not bother to question how exactly I had died.”

“When I had to, you know, tell your dad that you died from a phaser blast to your side, he didn’t ask any questions about it. He only told us to bring you to New Vulcan whenever we had the time so we could give you a proper burial.”

Spock looked solemn. “He would know I could survive such an attack as long as I fell into a trance. While my father is less prejudiced in comparison to other Vulcans, he may also be under the assumption that I failed in my trance no thanks to simple biology.” Jim frowned. “Therefore, when the priests offered _ak’shem_ and _katra_ to Shariel as they should with someone whose blood is from high political ranking, I most reasonably would have been rejected. The reasons for offering were incorrect.”

“So, you’re saying this Shariel guy rejected your _katra_ and sent you back to our realm of existence.” Spock nodded. “And the only way for your _katra_ to be accepted is to redo that kerahleew ceremony with the proper reasoning.”

“Correct, captain.”

“You’re technically dead so I’m technically not your captain anymore,” Jim retorted with crossed arms. Spock rose an amused eyebrow in response. “Besides, what happens if your _katra_ is accepted? You’d still get put in a Katric Ark for us to take with us on the Enterprise.”

“That only happened because my _katra_ was rejected. If it was accepted, the priests would have taken it for proper burial. The process for that is secret and unspoken of with outsiders.” Spock looked back at the Shariel statue. “I question the length of time it took for my _katra_ to become semi-corporeal. This may be affected by my human heritage though I have little evidence to support such a hypothesis. What evidence I have is the fact I take 6.83% more time to reach a meditative state than the average Vulcan, thus, any spiritual or religious practices in general may take more time than usual.”

Jim took a seat by the door and rubbed at his eyes. “Okay, so, we have to find out how you died and get that resolved. I assume you don’t want to stay half-dead half-alive.”

“That would be preferable, Jim." 

Blue eyes looked up into brown and the man gulped as he broke eye contact. “Right. So do you have any clues on how you died?”

“Brain damage is the most logical conclusion.” the Vulcan reached out to touch the Katric Ark with a sad look on his face. As sad as a Vulcan could get at least. “In fact, if my brain chemistry was altered while I was in the Vulcan healing trance and I died as a result of such alteration that no one knew existed, then _kr’aleiu_ was more than improper offerings. It should not have been able to occur at all.” Spock suddenly stood at full attention with darkness in his eyes. “My _katra_ was stolen and forced into this crystal to keep me dead and unable to taint Vulcan lineage.”

“Whoa, that’s quite the conclusion to jump to, Spock.” Jim cocked his head to the side. “Knowing you it must be logical but I can’t find the sense in your dad and Ambassador Spock letting those priests block you from a proper burial.”

The Vulcan grabbed the Katric Ark and it started to pulse in his hands. “This device stores _katras_ to keep them from decaying. What you see before you is _i’ki_ , my consciousness. The majority of my memories, the other half of a Vulcan’s _katra_ , remains in this vessel. If the priests simply wanted to present my _katra_ to the Enterprise for you to remember me, they would have stored my katra in a _vre-katra_ made of _jasif_. Katric Arks are polycrystalline ancient storage vessels meant to trap _katras_ for thousands of years.” Jim swore he could hear fear creeping into Spock’s voice. “I cannot say with confidence that the ancient ritual to release _katras_ in Katric Arks survived Vulcan-that-was’ demise.” 

“Why would they do that though? If the offerings funeral thing can’t happen then why not appeal to your human heritage and give you a good old cremation?”

“I am not sure if the priests knew beforehand that _kr’aleiu_ could not occur. I do not know if my father even knew that it was impossible given my death was unknown.”

“I’m sure Vulcans have died of unknown causes before.” 

“Negative, Jim; all Vulcan bodies are scanned and analyzed at the Vulcan Science Academy in order to have the correct offerings for proper burial. Before the VSA, Vulcans died from very few causes outside of age but they could be easily traceable unlike human ailments.” Spock stared at the Katric Ark before placing it back on the desk as if it burned him. “Did you visit the VSA?” 

“No, we just went straight to the temple.”

The Vulcan froze. “If memory serves me right, which it always does, you extracted multiple memories from this Ark crystal.” Jim slowly nodded. “Perhaps you were not incorrect with your joking statement about bringing my _i’ki_ to this realm.”

“Ah,” he shook his head. “Bones said I’m just barely psi-conscious. I can’t do anything about it except be susceptible to others who actually have psychic powers.”

Spock lowered his head for a minute, basking in silence before walking over to Jim. He gently placed his fingers over Jim’s face in an oddly familiar fashion. Jim vaguely remembered his fingers being where Ambassador Spock had pressed against him when initiating that mind meld on Delta Vega. “What I am about to begin is a mind meld,” Spock started, “I must first ask permission as it is one of the most intimate actions a Vulcan can take with any being. I will not enter your mind without consent." 

“Yeah. Yeah, it’s okay.” Jim found the words heavy on his tongue, eyes entranced by Spock’s firm and cautious gaze. “You can meld with me.”

“You do not understand, Jim. Please let me explain.” The hand on his face pulled from the meld points and cradled the side of his face instead. Jim felt himself blushing from the affectionate hold. “ _Kash-nohv_ is precious for my people. There are different levels of entry but the one I intend to pursue is one of the deepest there is. I will enter your mind as a _pyllora_ , I believe in Standard this can be considered a guide. I plan to assess a hypothesis and if it is true, then we will be a step closer to understanding what possibly killed me.”

“If it means we can figure out how to deal with this issue at hand, then I will gladly open my mind to you, Spock. I trust you.”

Spock raised his other hand to Jim’s face and cradled it as if Jim was the most precious being he ever had the honor to set his sights on. Jim flushed profusely, unable to break eye contact from the Vulcan. “Your eyes,” Spock murmured quietly, a puff of breath on Jim’s nose, “are the bluest I have ever encountered.”

“I know,” Jim whispered back, hand fidgeting against his leg as he struggled to keep himself from overlapping Spock’s hand with his own. “I saw it in your memories.”

The Vulcan broke eye contact first, looking off at a point beyond Jim’s shoulder. “Then you know what I tried very hard to ignore.”

“It’s okay to have emotions,” he started, reaching that hand up after all to touch Spock’s. Vibrant brown eyes, oh-so-human chocolate brown eyes, locked with his. “You didn’t need to repress what you feel for me, Spock. I’m sure you can feel it now, what I feel for you.”

Jim tried his best to mentally convey the feelings of fondness and devotion he had for Spock. He thought about all the times he looked over at the science station on the bridge and smiled with unadulterated affection. He thought about their chess games, how he wanted to cross that invisible line and touch Spock. Hold his hands, kiss his cheeks, brush fingers through his hair and watch him sleep without being confined to a biobed. Spock’s eyes never left Jim’s as the younger man sent all the impressions he could in the silence that lingered between them. He moved his hand to twine his fingers with Spock’s, noting the soft huff of breath caused by the action. It made something rosy color Jim’s heart, excitement at rebescent green cheeks and pupil-dilated eyes.

Spock could probably tell him who leaned in first, but in the end it didn’t really matter as much as the fact that they both did. The kiss was gentle, lips brushing against each other with a layer of bashful shyness between them. Jim’s eyes flickered closed and he pressed in for more, parting his lips to meld them against Spock’s own. The Vulcan didn’t hesitate, moving his lips and licking Jim’s bottom lip with a soft hum. Jim could feel the smile on Spock’s lips and it made him hungry for more, leaning up to slide the gentle kiss into dirtier territory. The spicy taste of Spock’s mouth intoxicated him more than any drug ever could.

" _Nahp, hif-bi tu throks_ ,” whispered Spock, moving his fingers to press against Jim’s meld points. Jim leaned further into the kiss, echoing _yes_ in his head as his tongue ran against Spock’s rougher one. “My mind to your mind, my thoughts to your thoughts.”

At first there was nothing and then it was _everything_. This was so different from his mind meld with the ambassador. Of course the reason for that meld was different from this but the sensations that consumed Jim’s mind were barely manageable. He remembered he was melding with Spock’s _soul_ , his consciousness in its purest form, unhinged from the baggage memories can bring. Spock was showing him everything, letting him into the deepest parts of himself as much as he was entering the deepest parts of Jim’s mind.

Spock’s presence was blindingly vibrant, similar enough to the intensity Jim saw in Spock’s memories. It was solicitous against his thoughts, pressing softly against his mind with tender questions. Jim could feel the care laced in every breath, felt a attentive blanket of endearment layer over him as his mind adjusted to the stark presence surrounding him. The vibrancy cooled to dulled tones, mellowing out into colorful blends and shapes he couldn’t recognize at first. He could hear Spock’s voice embedded in his essence, baritone deep and rich with commands Jim couldn’t disobey even if he wanted to. 

Eventually the colors settled into a red landscape. Dust particles flew through the air in a gentle dulcet breeze cast about the land. Jim knelt and touched the dirt beneath his feet, rubbing the gritty sand between his fingers with a hum. He had only seen this land once from hundreds of thousands of meters above ground as he fought with Sulu to destroy the drill. Jim looked up as he felt Spock’s awareness hover over him like a cloud that didn’t filter the sun but merely made it brighter. He smiled to himself and stood up as he dusted off his hands and turned to find Spock across from him, shimmering in the heat under the sun. 

There wasn’t a need for words here; their thoughts were so intertwined Jim could barely tell if it was his thoughts or Spock’s, if they were processing information using Golic Vulcan or Federation Standard. It didn’t really matter as he reached for Spock, grinning when the taller being took his hands and twined their fingers together with a shy Vulcan smile. Jim knew that Spock had found something in his head, whether it was the evidence he needed to prove how he died or not he didn’t know. Either way, it was making Spock happy so he leaned forward and pressed a gentle kiss to the tip of the Vulcan’s nose. Spock _blushed_ , unabashedly flustered at the humanesque demonstration of attraction. It made Jim’s heart sing that he could bring these emotions out of the Vulcan, that he could make Spock feel a myriad of emotions having to do with desire, compassion, and intimacy. 

The meld ended calmly, a tranquil descent back into his own mind. His lips were still kissing Spock’s and when they pulled away, Jim couldn’t help but grin at the flush dotting Spock’s cheeks and ears. The Vulcan pulled his hands from Jim’s face and bowed his head with understanding. “The evidence is sound: we are bonded, Jim.” 

_Bonded_. “How the hell did that happen?” 

“I cannot remember,” Spock’s voice was quiet and too controlled. “I found the initial connection in your psyche, an incandescent pull towards my own. It is a strong bond, loosely built but simultaneously thick and sturdy.” He looked back at the Ark with narrowed eyes. “I realized I was _telsu_ —bonded—when my _i’ki_ found this realm. It is always important to reassess one’s bonds while emerging from a trance but I could not discern the source until now.” 

“Is this a bad thing?” 

Spock shook his head. “Negative, Jim. It simply means we are telepathically connected.”

“So you can read my thoughts?” 

“Only impressions while the bond is weak but stronger bonds do allow for direct telepathic contact. Given you are psi-conscious, I can assume we could eventually have direct telepathic conversation but for now, I predict we can only exchange impressions and bursts of images.” Jim grinned foolishly at that which made Spock huff a short breath. “We can also send emotional impressions, something only acceptable in Vulcan society between bondmates. Modern Vulcans are _rigolaya_ , what humans call empaths. Much of our power lies in bonds and physical touch. A Vulcan who cannot control emotional impulses and emotes outside a bond is considered _arie’amp_. ‘Emotionally insane' is the best Standard translation for that particular state of mind. We often see humans as so.” Spock reached out a hand to help Jim out of his seat. “For Vulcans we attempt to control the emotions we feel to maintain our logical assessments of the world and ourselves.  Emotions are private and personal; they are not intended to be read by any party other than the ones we let into our minds. Thus, we avoid touch not simply for the privacy of other’s minds, but the privacy of our own. Our hands host numerous psychic zones that connect us directly to telepathic and psi-conscious minds. Our fingers in particular can double as erogenous zones” 

Jim stared at their twined hands and his eyes widened with realization. “So, like, we’re making out right now?” 

“Indeed.” 

“Holy shit.” He focused on the feeling of Spock’s fingers between his and felt a sultry shiver seep through his spine and coat his brain with lust. “Oh.” 

Spock pulled them apart with a barely there chuckle. “That is considered obscene but there are more socially acceptable ways to present affection without being deemed _arie’amp._ ” The Vulcan held out the index and middle fingers of his right hand and motioned for Jim to do the same. Once he did, Spock pressed his fingers to Jim’s. “This is a Vulcan kiss: _ozh’esta_.” Jim felt the same jolt down his spine when Spock stroked his fingers across Jim’s, but it carried a more soothing essence to it. Spock looked like he was seconds from melting into a puddle of infatuation; his eyes were visibly enamored by the kiss he was sharing and the conversation he continued. “ _Taluhk nash-veh k’dular_. I cherish thee.” 

“ _Taluhk nash-veh k’dular._ ” repeated Jim, blushing just a bit more when Spock at him with slightly widened eyes. He pulled away with a cough and crossed his arms against his chest. “Still, why are you telling me this? I’m bonded to you and we have this awesome connection but you’re still dead.” 

“Affirmative.” Spock gathered himself and fell into his usual stoic Vulcan stance. “Our bond may be plausible evidence toward assessing my brain while I was in the Vulcan trance. I postulate psychosomatic dissension as cause for discord but it would have to be an extremely dissonant difference to alter my brain’s chemical composition to the point of inflicting lethal damage midst a healing trance.” 

Jim blinked a few times before rubbing his eyes. “I swear that made sense to some part of my brain but I can’t process half of what you just said right now.”

Spock nodded. “I understand. It must have been a tiresome and emotionally draining week for you. This news and my sudden arrival must be a shock to handle.”

“You could put it that way,” Jim scoffed with a shake of his head. “I just need to sleep on it. Maybe if I rest, when I wake up for Alpha shift I can think a bit more about what happened leading up to the mission that could have done something to you.” He looked over at the Katric Ark and sighed. “If we don’t find a way to get the rest of your _katra_ out that crystal, what will happen to your soul? I can’t imagine it can last long on it’s own.” 

“It cannot, especially when semi-corporeal as I am now. I cannot currently calculate how much time my _i’ki_ has before I am found and returned to the proper realm but the separation of my _katra_ is admittedly a strain.” The Vulcan stepped toward Jim and brushes cool fingers against his temple. Jim felt a soothingly affectionate wave pass through him. “I will meditate on the matter while you rest, _k’diwa_. Do not lie awake in your thoughts. _Yuk-tor muhl_.”

Jim pressed a soft kiss to Spock’s lips in turn. “Goodnight to you, too.”

He slept well back in his room, a comforting buzz in the back of his head that bled Spock’s presence into him as he fully woke up. Jim didn’t have the time to check in on Spock’s room, barely having the time to make it down to the mess hall for a short breakfast with Bones. He contemplated telling his friend about the whole _katra_ deal but decided to keep that conversation a private one. Bones was busy ranting about his latest patient from engineering and Jim was enjoying the story too much to spring the news about Spock. 

Jim did get his medical leave taken back so he was allowed on the bridge once more to everyone’s excitement. Uhura gave him a comforting smile and Sulu happily greeted him in turn. The bridge seemed less tense than before and Jim was relieved at that fact. He processed various documents he was somewhat behind on and examined the flight path the _Enterprise_ was taking toward class M planet Rho Xi II in the Muphi system residing in the Beta sector of the galaxy. Rho Xi II has been identified years ago but given the _Enterprise_ was the first mission in the past few centuries out this far, Jim’s crew were the lucky ones to make First Contact.

They were still a good number of light years away, the stop at New Vulcan was on the path to Rho Xi II which was close enough. Jim had little need to be on deck but he liked sitting in the captain’s chair to look up at the view screen and watch the passing stars like he’d wanted to do for years as a child. He chuckled to himself then, wondering what his childhood self, the one before Tarsus IV, would think about him now. James T. Kirk, youngest captain in the fleet leading the Federation exploration flagship on it’s first five-year mission, the first mission of it’s kind since the early space exploration days that lead to the First Contact with Vulcans. Sometimes he found it hard to believe this was his life now, boldly going where no one has gone before, but he also knew he couldn’t imagine any other life for himself.

_After all_ , Jim thought as his turned in his chair and looked out at his working Alpha crew, the senior bridge team he’d grown to admire as they grew to respect him, _if I lived any other life I wouldn’t have these people I considered family_. He thought back to Ambassador Spock and the hazy memories he had transferred, the intense emotion that came with it and the faint notion that the ambassador had a Jim like Spock does now and maybe, just maybe, Jim and Spock could be a universal concept as much as gravity.

Jim couldn’t help the smile that drifted to his lips from the thought. He’d like to believe in other universes, in parallel pasts and futures, that he found his Spock and had him for longer than he did now. He hoped those hypothetical two got it through their thick skulls much sooner than he and his Spock did that there was more than simple friendship between them. 

“Captain,” called Sulu during Jim’s wandering thoughts. He quickly turned to the pilot and motioned for him to continue. “We are approaching the Muphi system and slowing down for entry. We have 68 light years left to reach the system at our current warp speed, so we should arrive in Rho Xi II’s orbit in six shiptime days.” 

“Thank you, Mr. Sulu,” Jim replied with a soft nod as he returned to studying medbay reports on the small supply restock they apparently received on New Vulcan during the funeral.

Alpha shift ended with no troubles and Jim walked with Chekov and Uhura off the bridge, the three chatting about personal research projects they wanted to conduct during the mission. Uhura pulled him aside when their turbo lift arrived at the mess, a question in her eyes that she wouldn’t say aloud. Jim squeezed her shoulder and only hoped it convey the comfort he had found last night after the ordeal.

Jim returned to his room half munching on a greasy sandwich he knew Bones would give him hell for and plopped at his desk to work on shift reassignments now that he was back on the docket. He wanted to give himself Alpha and Beta shifts every three days, especially during this particular mission where they could be in orbit for a good week or more while exploring the new planet. At the same time, he knew he had a lot of work to catch up on, he had to find a new First Officer either on his ship or someone to pick up at the next starbase, he had to report to the admiralty on the progress of the five year mission and follow up on the incident that took Spock’s life, though the latter probably should wait until Jim and Spock figured out what brain damage occurred that killed Spock.

As if hearing Jim think about him, which was plausible, Spock came through to his room from their shared bathroom. The Vulcan was dressed in black robes and he looked paler than last night. Jim sent him a smile as he put down his PADD and reached out two fingers for a kiss. He couldn’t help but lightly berate himself for never speaking up while Spock was alive so they could at least have had a few weeks of this. Hell, maybe the mission wouldn’t have ended with Spock shot in the heart if their relationship was different.

“It is a waste of time and energy to contemplate the past when the present has yet to come to fruition.” murmured Spock as he stroked Jim’s fingers with his own. “I am here to ask you a question concerning Alpha bridge shift.” 

“Was there something wrong?”

“Negative, I have found it imperative to learn the assessment of your time spent on deck.”

Jim’s brow furrowed before he laughed in understanding. “Oh wow; you’re cute, you know that?”

“Vulcans are not cute.” 

“Sure but _you’re_ cute, Spock. You can ask me how my day went simply because you care. It doesn’t always have to be a quantitative evaluation, empirical data lives matter.” Spock raised an eyebrow but there was a light green to his cheeks that made Jim happily grin. “My shift went well since you’re asking; we’re on route to a class M planet so it’s just a waiting game now until we’re in orbit. Sulu said it should take six days.”

The Vulcan nodded and pulled his hand from Jim’s to stand at parade rest. “I have discovered in the hours since my arrival that the corporeal state of my being is, for lack of a better phrase, dwindling away. I believe the reasoning for why the _i’ki_ has yet to completely leave this realm is connected to our bond. Unfortunately I am not an expert on telepathic bonding despite being one of the stronger telepathy-minded Vulcans even before the Narada Incident.”

“We could ask Bones for help; this is a medical issue after all.” Spock almost scowled at the mention of the doctor. “Hey, he took a memory from the Ark, too, even wore black at the ceremony. What does that mean?”

“Black indicates a well respected elder.”

“Ha! Bones will get a kick out of that,” the captain turned back to his PADD with a hum. “I wore green and Uhura wore red.”

“Red? Interesting.”

“Care to divulge the interest?”

Spock bowed his head. “Red was a color in ancient Vulcan lore before the Klingon separation that was associated with protecting the land. It was used in my ancient clan for clothing and weaponry between warriors who vowed to protect one another in battle, otherwise termed as _ne ki’ne_. During the ancient training practice of _ahkhinahr_ , when warrior Vulcans trained through _foshinahr_ —defensive psionic warrior practice—or _nashinahr_ —offensive psionic warrior practice—varying shades of red denoted the relations between warriors in these practices but vivid crimson red was reserved for one’s _ne ki’ne_.”

“Oh wow,” Jim turned in his chair to face Spock. “How would they know to dress her in red and not me?” 

“Humans have extremely loud thoughts and emotions; it was most likely obvious without needing to meld in order to understand your relation to me.” 

“So green is something really close, huh?”

“Affirmative.” Spock looked away in an almost shy manner. “Green is the color of our blood, our lifeline if you would put it. It does not necessarily denote romance, but it does allude to a closeness as equal as blood and body. We call it _t’hai’la_.” 

“ _T’hai’la,_ ” Jim parroted back with a soft voice.

Spock’s lips thinned with a thought. “It is a term used between life long friends but knowing the romantic inclination between ourselves, the proper term and pronunciation would, in fact, be _t’hy’la_ : friend, brother, lover.”

“Oh.” Jim couldn’t help the tender smile he gave at the word. “Wow; that’s good to know. Again, any reason why you’re not so secretive about Vulcan lore anymore? I had to find out _after_ your death that writing names in High Vulcan is an endearment.”

The Vulcan’s posture firmed even more than Jim thought could be possible. “There is a 67.341% chance that my _i’ki_ will be reabsorbed into the universe and the rest of my _katra_ shall stay trapped in the Katric Ark before any formidable conclusion can commence. I would prefer to lower these odds so I may have a proper Vulcan burial. To do so requires I disclose otherwise confidential processes and ancient practices, even if logically it contradicts Vulcanian privacy customs. I also find it quite onerous to not supply this information given I do not have particular elements of me at this moment to censor myself.” Spock’s arm twitched minimally. “Along with this is the conjecture that trapping my _katra_ and not assessing the reason for my expiry is a well-conceived stratagem from conservatively-minded Vulcan priests to keep my lineage from tainting the re-established order found on New Vulcan. I require your help to discover the truth and you must be privy to the ways of my people to understand.”

“So would they apply this trap-Spock’s- _katra_ -forever plan to Ambassador Spock, too?” 

“I highly doubt that. The ambassador has helped New Vulcan far more than I have.” Spock’s tone changed into something akin to regret. “He has proven himself to be worthy of a proper burial regardless of his lineage. I, on the other hand, have only corroborated their belief that my decision to join Starfleet envices my human heredity. Losing command of the flagship, being unable to stop the Red Matter from destroying our home, and publicly claiming Earth to be my only other home does not help my case in their eyes.” 

Jim stood up with anger boiling in his gut. “You saved what you could with the tools we had. You were willing to sacrifice yourself to save a world who judged you for your culture as much as Vulcan judged you for your emotions. You saved the Elders; without you they would be dead! Your death doesn’t deserve this fucking treatment.”

Spock’s respondent smile was sardonically dry. “Your words are well meant but tinged with emotion. That is a way neither the Elders nor priests will see as legitimate.” Brown eyes looked into blue, silence bleeding between them until the Vulcan spoke once more. “I am, in essence, a science experiment, Jim. A living, conscious, Vulcan hybrid science experiment. My genetics taint the Vulcan gene pool and even though I am suspected to be sterile and cannot genetically contribute to the gene pool, there is still an issue of maintaining Vulcan religious purity.”

“All this trickery and deceit just to try to nix you from the history of Vulcan? Why did the VSA even bother to allow Sarek and Amanda to have you?” 

“My father is an ambassador to the Federation and is the son of T’Pau, who, as you may know, rejected a seat on the Federation council. My mother was one of Earth’s most talented linguists and invented the Universal Translator. If the VSA was not to fund the research on Vulcan-Human hybridization, then the Terran Science Foundation of the Federation would gladly have done so.” Spock shrugged a non-shrug. “I would have been a Terran citizen which I am sure many Vulcans would not have minded. This though meant losing Amanda and Sarek and the Elders would not have that.” 

“Fuck,” Jim murmured, running hands through his hair. “Fuck, they can’t _hurt_ you for what your parents wanted to do. They don’t have the right to excise you when they wanted you born in the first place!”

“The VSA wanted Amanda and Sarek; one is gone and the other most likely has lost political power and influence after Vulcan-that-was‘ destruction. I frankly do not matter in their eyes anymore. Yes, I am now a member of an endangered species but I have always been since my conception.” Spock broke eye contact with a low hiss. “I am only Starfleet and Earth’s now. My burial on New Vulcan most likely only occurred because of my father and your contact with the colony.”

Jim reached out to squeeze Spock’s elbow, gentle with his hand as he poured comfort and calamity into the touch. Spock seemed to visibly relax, his shoulders still tight but not with the anger he was carrying before. “I wish you were here,” started Jim, “all of you, so you could tell this to Starfleet. Let them know what’s up because you fucking _know_ the admiralty will be right by your side to protect your rights as a Vulcan citizen. I know they can’t get around whatever the Vulcan High Council decides, but at least it would have meant your burial and what happens to you _katra_ would reach more people than those scummy xenophobic priests.”

“I agree yet the reason for my death would still be an issue." 

“Yeah, but at least it would have forced the VSA to scan you for injuries and get a finger on what exactly happened so you wouldn’t be rejected from that death god.” Jim leaned up to press a soft kiss to Spock’s cheek. “You don’t deserve to be rejected anymore.”

Spock leaned into the kiss with closed eyes. “I thank you for your comforting words. It is satisfactory to reveal the theories I have pondered over for years and receive adequate support in turn.” 

Jim laughed and turned to press his lips to Spock’s with a hum, barely hearing the sound of someone punching in an override code. He pulled away from the Vulcan with a choked sound as the door opened to present a worried Bones in the doorway. Jim could feel surprise through their bond and he held back a snort as Spock quickly blocked the emotion from blooming. 

“Jim,” the doctor said as he slowly closed the door behind him. His arms were raised as if working with a wild animal. “I was just outside the door for a few seconds before I came in; I wanted to check up on you and make sure you’re doing well.”

“I’m fine, Bones; did someone say otherwise?” Bones continued to stare at Jim like he had grown a second head. Jim felt Spock shift behind him and he remembered why Bones might be freaking out in the first place. “Oh yeah, I meant to tell you this earlier but Spock is back. Well, kinda. He’s still dead but half his _katra_ got rejected from this death god Shariel and the other half is locked up for thousands of years so he’s kind of in limbo. You can basically call this,” he pointed a thumb back at the Vulcan, “Spock’s ghost.” 

“As I stated before, ghosts are not real, captain.”

Jim turned to throw a meaningless glare at Spock. “I’m not your captain while you’re dead, Spock.”

“Jim?” the called man turned back to his friend with a questioning hum. “Jim, Spock’s not there. He’s dead, remember?” 

The blonde blinked twice. “Can you not see him?”

“Fascinating.”

“Wow, you’ve really ruffled his feathers there not being able to see him.” Jim turned back to Spock with a slight frown. “Do you have any theories on why the dear doctor can’t see you?”

“Probably because I’m not _hallucinating_ his existence like you are right now, Jim.” one hand reached into a back pocket to pull out a hypospray. “I think you need to come to medbay for more neural scans.” 

“Oh no, I am not letting you assault my neck with more of those things,” Jim stepped back with a low growl. “I’m fine, trust me. I don’t know why you can’t see him but he’s here. He’s right behind me.” 

“Jim, I know it’s hard—,” 

“I’m not seeing things, Bones! He’s really here; Spock, can you do anything to prove you’re here?”

The Vulcan perked and left Jim’s side to pick up the PADD Jim had been working on to edit shift assignments. Bones cursed under his breath and dropped his hypospray at the action. “Please inform Doctor McCoy that I have elected to pick up this PADD as proof of my existence on this plane.”

“He said he just picked up the PADD.”

“What the everlasting _fuck_ ,” the brunette pulled at his hair with stress. “What the hell; you have to pulling at my leg right now. Jim, stop pulling at my leg. I don’t have time for this.”

“I’m not joking; Spock’s here. Well, his soul is here but that’s just a detail.” the man crossed his arms with a small huff. “I can’t understand why you can’t see his actual _i’ki._ Hey, wait; Spock, if I touch you and you touch Bones, can you send my impressions of your existence to him?” 

The Vulcan’s brow wrinkled in thought. “It may work but he may still believe you to believe in something that you imagine to be real.” Spock suddenly froze as his eyes widened. “Doctor McCoy shared a memory from the Katric Ark, correct? If I can find the memory and relay it to him, he must know that even if he cannot see me, I am here.” 

“Okay, but how can you do that?” 

Spock was already halfway out the door to their shared bathroom by the time Jim finished his sentence. He turned back to Bones with a hesitant smile. The doctor seemed to be having a hard time with the idea that Spock was still alive in some form. Jim chuckled when he heard Bones mumble under his breath about stupid lovebirds who don’t know how to stay dead. He felt a small pull in the back of his head and winced lightly, causing Bones to step fully into the room and grab Jim’s arm with honest concern.

“Jim, seriously, if you’re seeing things you need to let me know.” 

Spock came back with the Katric Ark in hand. “I have managed to locate the missing memory. Even if it is no longer in my memories, I can feel it in McCoy’s brain. Please relay what I state to the doctor.” Jim nodded as he kept his eyes on Bones. 

“It was during my two week coma in the Academy special sciences’ hospital,” Jim began quietly. “Spock had been visiting nonstop every day since his debriefing with Starfleet had ended for the time being. You were standing vigil at my bedside, occasionally looking at Spock with what he could decipher as concern. You told him to go to his apartment, to visit Nyota and comfort her. He told you they had parted ways concerning a romantic relationship. You didn’t seem surprised and that was intriguing for Spock. Why would you _not_ be surprised at the end of Spock’s liaison with Nyota?

“Spock didn’t inquire into your reaction and turned his eyes back to my still body. Only the machinery and the telltale sign of breathing gave him reassurance. You spoke up after a few more minutes of silence and asked Spock if he would have been in the reaction chamber if he wasn’t busy blowing up Admiral Marcus’ ship. Spock nodded once; he knew that he wished—a foolish human emotion that leant itself more harm than good—he was the one in the biobed instead of me. A healing trance would have reversed certain amounts of radiation. Spock also knew that it would not reverse all amounts and his brain would have deteriorated and ended the trance. He wouldn’t have had Khan’s blood to save him like I did. It was an illogical wish, but if it meant I was alive and unharmed, Spock wished it without a care.”

“Jim,” Bones’ voice was shaking, a lump in his throat as he stepped back. “I don’t know how you know what memory I saw. I didn’t tell you about that conversation and I sure as hell never told you what Spock was thinking about at the time.”

Jim, who was admittedly a little emotional about Spock’s memory, looked over at the Vulcan. Adoration was probably oozing from his blue eyes but he couldn’t bother to hide it. “I only know because he just now told me. He found out by examining his memories. That’s what was left in the Katric Ark.” Bones then seemed to notice the crystal and he put a hand to his chest in shock.

“Oh my god, Spock’s not _dead_.”

“Indeed, doctor.”

“He said duh.”

Bones pressed his hands to his temples. “Wow, this is gonna take time to get used to. Of course your psi-conscious ass would somehow reanimate Spock for yourself to see while his soul is out here floating around.” 

“So because you aren’t psi-conscious you can’t see him?” Jim frowned. “No one on this ship is psi-conscious, I think a few crew members are sensitive to psychic powers but not much more. You would know that more than me Bones, being CMO and all.”

“Off the top of my head only Spock had psychic powers since the crew is mostly human but there are a handful of psi-sensitive crew members and that’s mostly the non-human crew. Everyone else is psi-null.” Bones crossed his arms as he glared at his friend. “What I _do_ know is that I want to take you in for some more scans, kid. Spock too I guess. It wouldn’t do much harm to see if my sensors can pick him up. I don’t have much equipment on the ship that can analyze psychic beings and it ain’t my area of expertise in the first place but I’ll do my best with what I’m got.”

Usually Jim would protest but he knew Spock needed to know what happened in his healing trance as soon as possible. Bones’ scans could give good insight into how Spock’s soul and the Ark were handling this entire ordeal. Essentially Jim only said yes for Spock though he was equally curious to see if Bones’ readings could give proof to the bond Spock had brought up last night. 

The PENS was used again and Jim did pass out as expected but it took longer to do so, which meant his psyche was getting used to psionic influence. While Jim was knocked out, Bones gave Spock a PADD and told him to write on it to communicate, grumbling about voodoo Vulcan ghost magic and why he was never told about these things in the first place. When Jim woke up, Spock was tied up to various hooks and cables with a grumpy look on his face and an unamused frown on his lips. Jim, who was lounged on a bio bed, snorted at the sight. Spock turned to the PADD in hand, scribbled, and showed it to Jim. _I am pleased to see you are awake. None of Dr. McCoy’s scanners can assess my psyche properly. Given I do not have a body for the devices to scan, it is either reading no data or the data is indecipherable as my telepathy and emotional control are no longer weakened by the presence of a physical modem for communication. In essence, I am overloading the machinery._

Jim raised an eyebrow and turned to Bones, who was tapping away at a PADD and reviewing the readings from the PENS devices. The doctor grabbed the PADD out of Spock’s hands and started swiping through it, pulling up Jim’s scans to examine. His brow creased in concentration, eyes darting between Jim’s scans and whatever he managed to get from Spock’s. Bones pinched and zoomed in on two sections of both data sets. His jaw locked with annoyance when he turned to look at Jim. 

“Care to tell me why part of the psi-conscious sections in your brain is on the same wavelength as this Vulcan ghost? And by same wavelength I mean you gave off some indescribable nonsense that happens to match the patterns of Mr. Ghost’s indescribable nonsense.”

“If it helps,” Jim winced innocently, “we’re bonded.”

“Bonded? Fucking _bonded_!” Bones groaned and placed the PADDs on a nearby table to run his hands down his face. “You two idiots really enjoy makin’ me stressed out your new day job, even postmortem for you, hobgoblin.”

“According to traditional Terran ghost stories, a ghost caught in the realm of the living often has a vendetta they must resolve in order to pass on to the next realm.” Spock looked over at Bones with a small smirk. “Thus, to resolve my vendetta I must antagonize Dr. McCoy until he presents the data necessary to assist in our mission.”

Jim fell out laughing and Bones, who had turned back to Jim’s scans to find anymore blips in the data, turned his scowl on him. “What funny shit did the dead guy say now?”

“Just that he loves you.”

“I most certainly do not.”

“You’re gonna make me sick, Jim.”

The blonde laughed more, pressing a hand to his chest as he felt Spock’s amusement through the bond. Bones told Jim to shut up, rushing to the scanner PADDs still loading data from the sensors still on Jim. He held the Spock data PADD in hand and matched the two together. He cursed under his breath. “What can you do with bonds, Spock, because Jim’s readings spiked like a bitch when you started having emotions.”

Spock looked over at Jim who spoke for the Vulcan. “In bonds we can feel each other’s emotions and relay impressions, pictures, words, the whole shebang. It’s basically like regular communication but without the drama speaking words brings.”

Bones ran a hand through his hair. “Alright. So, you got yourself mentally paired with Spock. What happens to you when he gets picked back up by the death god?”

Spock motioned to get the PADD back and Bones passed it along through Jim. The Vulcan scribbled for a little while longer than before. He turned the PADD over with a dismal look in his eyes. Jim couldn’t feel a single emotion from him. “The bond will sever,” Bones read aloud off the PADD. “We call this _p’pil’la’ai_. Jim will return to New Vulcan for a healer to mend the hole in his psyche if he survives the break.” Bones huffed angrily as he read that part. “Vulcan bonds grow stronger with time. A break without proper preparation can cause immense damage. My death will not be sudden as it has already happened, but when my _katra_ leaves this realm in full, this connection will wither away. I assure you I will prepare the captain’s mind properly for the inevitably severed bond.” 

Bones rubbed at his chin in the silence after Spock’s words. “When did the bond start?” Spock scribbled again. _I do not know_ . “Well that’s great. Can you at least estimate if it was before or after your death?” _I cannot tell_ . “How can you not tell when you attached your fucking brain to Jim’s? Did you not have your internal body clock working when you bonded to him?” _My circadian rhythm is always working and measurable, doctor. What I do not know is how or when this bonding occurred. Given the captain has not expressed any physical pain after my death, the bond was not broken by that particular event._  

Bones glared at Jim next. “You better give me the entire truth or I’m putting you on salads for the next month _and_ taking you off away teams for medicinal reasons.”

Jim winced. “Hey, how was I supposed to know the headaches I was having wasn’t just from dehydration? I thought I was manifesting the sorrow I felt about his death in a physical way. You know human psychology is fucked up like that.”

_You were experiencing a severed bond._ Spock’s grim face was stony and Jim still couldn’t feel anything from him. _Did you feel an unusual emptiness in your head?_ Jim nodded. _Immense sorrow that made movement agony?_ Jim slowly nodded. _Demotivation to complete tasks not simply from depression but because mental concentration was lost and replaced with subtle pain?_ Jim looked off to the side at that. _I cannot say with certainty as the way a human deals with a broken bond should differ from how a Vulcan does, but evidence shows similarities that make it difficult to assume otherwise._

“Oh great. We’ve got broken brain over here,” the doctor motioned to a scowling Jim, “and broken ghost over there.” Spock raised an interrogative eyebrow. “You two really are a match in heaven.” He sighed and shut off the machines. “Get some rest, Jim; I know it’s early but you need it. If Spock is still able to manipulate objects in our world he can go through your PADDs and do some work for you. I doubt he needs to sleep.”

“Affirmative, doctor.”

Jim jumped from the biobed and dusted off his pants. “Sleep sounds good to me. I’ll probably wake up and go to the bridge during Gamma and scare everyone there with the captain’s presence.” He started peeling sensors off Spock, who pulled back a bit but not enough to stop Jim. “Oh Bones, don’t tell anyone else about this. We don’t know how long Spock’s got and we don’t need to be freaking anyone else out when all of this could be over in like a week.”

“I’m a doctor; I have this thing I abide by called ‘patient confidentiality’.” He snorted. “Your secret’s safe with me, kid.”

Jim was surprisingly already half asleep by the time he and Spock reached his quarters. It was only 20:00 shiptime but all the new mental activities his brain was dealing with wore him out more than he expected. Spock put him to bed and he was out like a light with little more than a sleepy murmur about solving this mystery concerning Spock’s death.

Jim did wake up in the middle of Gamma shift and found Spock has returned to his room, probably to meditate. He made his way to the bridge and, as expected, made the bridge team stiff and over-the-top formal as he paced around. They did seem happy to see him smiling and joking around and eventually calmed down. He chatted with a couple ensigns about some lab work on deck 3 and stood by the navigator to listen to him excitedly tell his captain about how he was helping edit the mapping mechanisms for the next round of starships. Jim knew he had an amazing crew and he was always ecstatic that they respected him not only as their superior but as a fellow Starfleet officer whose curiosity about the stars could never be satiated.

He worked his way down to engineering where Scotty was patching up code and whining to Keenser about the latest mistake a green ensign made a couple days back. Scotty was overjoyed to see Jim up and about and immediately asked him to help him out with some things around the place. He teased Jim to stay away from the reactor chamber, but eventually got him up Jefferies tubes to fix electrical wiring and randomly crossed cables.

By the time Jim was done in engineering, Alpha shift was only about an hour away. He bid Scotty a shirt goodbye and trekked to his room, utilizing the bathroom to clean off the grit and oil caked on his face and hands from the dirty work. The warm water that cascaded down his body was refreshingly reinvigorating, a stark contrast to his mood in the days since Spock’s death. Hearing the bathroom door open, he popped the shower door open enough to peak his head out. Spock stood at the sink washing his hands and perked to catch eyes with Jim. The young man smiled warmly and reached an arm out with two wet fingers extended, his smile deepening as he felt Spock’s own wet fingers against his.

He finished his shower after Spock left and walked back into his room with a towel around his waist and another on his head where he was drying his hair. Spock sat at Jim’s desk working on a PADD, sending a comforting _good_ _morning_ through the bond. Jim found it oddly domestic and chuckled to himself at the thought. After dressing in his command gold, he gave Spock a kiss to the temple and left for breakfast with his senior crew.

Jim’s enlightened mood seemed to be infectious and after sleepy introductions and enough coffee in everyone’s systems, the table was laughing about a witty Andorii joke Chekov eagerly shared. The shift itself was seamless, calm and collected with everyone in better moods than before. Jim spent the time researching psionic powers and telepathy between signing release forms, reading up on new tactic strategies and new planets being discovered elsewhere. It was like normal again, before sadness consumed the crew and left them desolate. In the past weeks it seemed like if anyone dared to mention anything that might connect to Spock, there would be a collapse in the precarious peace they created to deal with the event. Now the bridge was lively, the crew was content, and though everyone but Jim and Bones thought Spock was gone forever, it was something they could all accept and move from.

Each day in the next week before reaching Rho Xi II was spent in a similar fashion: scans from Bones after Alpha (and half of Beta on the last day) shift followed by research in his quarters with Spock on trying to figure out how the hell to break open a Katric Ark and discover how this bond worked. Spock tried to log into the VSA’s servers but given he was legally dead his account had been terminated. He was also fading in and out of the living realm and couldn’t stay long enough to finish any hacking job he started. Jim couldn’t continue it because he didn’t understand Vulcan, let alone High Vulcan, and whenever Spock disappeared the bond went silent. After catching up on evaluations and research journals, Jim slept until he went down to engineering with Scotty, came up for a shower and breakfast and the cycle repeated.

Of course once the _Enterprise_ was in Rho Xi II’s orbit, shit hit the fan.

“Captain,” Sulu called out, pulling Jim from the mental game of chess he was having with Spock. “We’ve been unexpectedly pulled into the planet’s atmosphere like there’s a force reaching out to grab us.”

Jim pressed buttons on his chair and pulled up screens to examine the data. “We turned on our thrusters while we were just barely in orbit; we shouldn’t be going toward Rho Xi II at this speed.” He turned to the science station and held back the surprise he felt when he didn’t see Spock there. “Lieutenant Hans, any report on why this could be happening?”

“The atmosphere is morphic; it seems to be probing our shields with energy but not in a manner to destroy the shields, sir.” her hands flew across holographic panels and charts flowed from one to the next. “It is attracted to the rents in our shields; the radiation from the fission particles in the shields is creating a chemical reaction in the atmosphere that pulls us down." 

Jim turned back to his panels. “Can you figure out what elements in the atmosphere could be morphing to pull down our ship? Our scans assessed Rho Xi II to be similar to Earth in both the gravity field and carbon dioxide composition.”

“I’ll get on that, sir.”

He turned to Chekov and Sulu. “In the meantime, can you two combat the atmospheric pull? I don’t want us leaving orbit until we can get a hand on what exactly is in the air down there.”

“Yes, sir!” Chekov swiveled in his seat and immediately got to work, calling out to Sulu and the rest of the pilot team to keep them in orbit. 

Uhura perked. “Captain, I’m getting communication in our main channels.”

“Can you understand it?”

“Working on it, sir.” 

Jim mentally reached to Spock and sighed when he could still feel the Vulcan. “ _Are you good? You’ve been phasing out more today but for shorter periods of time_.” 

“ _I am adequate, Jim. It is admittedly bothersome but I can ‘live’ with it_.” Jim chuckled to himself at that. “ _I am most curious as to the atmospheric elements interfering with the_ Enterprise' _s own orbital instruments. We should immune to the planet’s pull regardless of what it’s composition is unless our ship is no longer in tune with Rho Xi II’s magnetic pull. The only possible reasons this could occur is a manual reset from the navigator station or interference with our operations from the outside_.” 

Huh. “Hey, Lieutenant Hans; is our magnetic field interfering with the planet’s own? Do our shields have anything to do with that?”

He never got an answer as the ship suddenly lurched forward and half of the bridge crew was slammed against their stations. Jim himself almost flew out of his seat, clinging onto the arms as his heart raced in his chest. “Turn thrusters on to 100%, even more if we can’t get out of the pull!” He turned to Uhura. “Are they saying anything you can understand?” 

“No, sir; it’s mostly just noise but I’ve been changing frequencies trying to find the correct one.” 

“Frequencies, radios, interference, magnets,” Jim murmured, reaching out to Spock again only to feel emptiness in return. He jumped from his chair with a lump in his throat. “I’ll be right back. Sulu, you have the comms.”

The ride in the turbolift to his quarters was slower than he wished and he practically ran to his quarters, punching in his access code with a quickness. As expected, there was no one inside, but the PADD Spock was using was cracked, evidence of it being dropped. Spock had never suddenly phased out, it was always subtle and he would put down whatever he had in hand in preparation for it. This was different. Spock didn’t fade out, he _vanished_. Fear gripped Jim’s heart and he picked up the device to get a look at what Spock was doing before he disappeared. The text was High Vulcan and he cursed, half tempted to ask Uhura to translate.

A panic started to settle in Jim’s gut and he tried to calm himself down. He already spent two weeks wallowing in the emotions that carried him after Spock’s death. He only had the Vulcan back for a week and not even all of him at that but knowing Spock had feelings for him, being able to act on the feelings he had himself, was _wonderful_. Jim didn’t want to lose that and he didn’t want Spock to disappear forever before they could figure out what exactly killed him. 

He got a handle on his breathing and went searching for the Katric Ark, trying to remember where they last had it. Spock was often keeping it on himself in hopes that proximity to the device would keep him from phasing out. Evidentially, he was still phasing out and now both him and the Ark was gone. Jim scrolled through some of Spock’s inordinately neat notes, picking out Standard words that ended up being placeholders for words that didn’t translate properly into Vulcan. One of these days Jim would seriously have to learn the language. 

As he examined the room for clues as to what happening before Spock’s sudden disappearance, Jim noticed how much the Vulcan had kinda moved in during the week. The incense Spock used for meditation rested on the bedside table along with the Shariel statue from his bedroom. A black meditation pad sat by Jim’s main room table and a pair of brown robes cloaked the chair at his desk. Spock was only wearing his Vulcan garbs at the moment, again suspicious that connecting to himself on a secular manner would keep him more physically temporal.

Jim rubbed the brown silk-like fibers between his fingers and sighed heavily. This casual domesticity was what he wanted between him and Spock for so long and he finally had it but only after Spock had died. Waking up to Spock meditating and being shoved into the bathroom to brush his teeth after leaning in for a kiss because, “your morning breath is, as humans say, ‘nothing to write home about’.” Coming back to his quarters to listen to Spock go on and on about ancient Vulcan religions, how he practiced psionic fighting when he got accepted into Starfleet in case he might ever need to use it.

“My family is religiously, scientifically, and heavily politically minded. My father is from an ancient lineage of priestesses and _fa-wak-glansu—_ prophets in Standard, yet Vulcan prophets' psionic powers extended beyond telepathy and into divine intervention and interpretation. My mother was in turn Jewish.” Spock had explained one day after he had phased during the entirety of Beta shift and came back exhausted and worn. “During my childhood, I faced heavy persecution from my peers due to my human heritage. I predicted that if my _ovda_ —faith in the old polytheistic religion—would be as strong as my ancestors and thus be able to pull power from _odva_ perhaps I would be more Vulcan than my peers could ever attempt to be. Religion and politics are heavily intertwined in Vulcan culture; it is how we became pacifists and followed the path of logic unlike Romulans.

“As you can tell,” the Vulcan continued with a dark look in his eyes, “I did not follow a strictly religious path. Though I am educated in a far more detailed manner than my peers were on ancient Vulcan rituals, I realized early on it would make me less of a modern Vulcan and I committed myself to scientific research.”

Jim could understand that. Turning to religion when all else seemed to fail was a common thing among many humanoid and even non-humanoid species across the galaxy. He wasn’t religious but he knew some people back during his days at the Academy who turned to rare Earth religions to find connection in the stars and higher power beings. After all, it wasn’t some coincidence that many humanoid species existed or that intelligent life existed in multiple systems across the galaxy. Believing in a divinity that connected everyone helped some people find their place in this vast universe.

“Bridge to Captain Kirk,” his comm rang, pulling Jim from his straying thoughts.

“Kirk here.”

“We’ve got our engines running at 120% and we’re still being pulled into the atmosphere. Lieutenant Hans can’t find any substance in the atmosphere that’s causing any of this.” 

“Bring our shields down to 70%,” Jim commanded, grabbing a spare PADD by the incense tray and transferring Spock’s data onto it. “Make sure Uhura is still deciphering that noise. I think the frequencies are being affected by some magnetic radiation but I don’t know if it’s from us or from them.”

“Got it, sir. Bridge out.” 

Jim rushed out of his quarters and down to engineering, grabbing Scotty by the arm as he passed by. “What combustion process are mission shuttles using?”

“Microgravity and rapid for the thrusters, just like the _Enterprise_. The engines have been processin’ fission reactions since there’s not as much energy needed to move the smaller ships unlike this gal here.” Scotty patted at a steel beam with a smile before cocking his head. “Why’d you ask?”

Jim looked up from the coding panel he was searching data on. “The shields receivers for the _Enterprise_ are still using ferrite cores, right?”

“Of course, ferrite cores that are magnetic thanks to photomagnetism and perfectly aligned in a Halbach cylinder. We use updated versions these days but particle beams and shield panels need ‘em to stay strong against gravitational pull.” Scotty narrowed his eyes. “Is there somethin’ up that I should know, captain?”

“I need to take a shuttle down into the atmosphere. Something is interfering with our magnetic fields and it would take too much time to rearrange the cores to fix the issue.” Jim slid the data from the coding panel onto the PADD in hand. “I think that since the shuttles don’t use as much energy and the shielding mechanics are different, I can bypass whatever security measures could be at play on the surface or at least get them to notice me instead of our ship.” He examined the documents one more time and turned to give Scotty a smile. “I don’t think it’s the atmosphere that’s the issue here: Rho Xi II’s security systems are embedded in the orbital fields around the planet. We may have been seen as a threat, which they could be trying to tell us, but their magnetic field is fucking with our frequencies so we can’t hear it. Something like a ion storm but more concentrated.”

Scotty nodded to himself. “Ah, I see. Can’t you send someone else down in the shuttle? We can’t lose our command team in less than a month’s time.”

“No one ever said I’m _not_ coming back.”

At that, Jim made his way down to the shuttle dock, pressing a button for the comm in the deck to talk to the crew at large. “Keep resisting the pull from the planet. I’ve got an idea that should keep us in orbit. Uhura, Sulu, if you could make it down to Dock 5 as soon as possible that’d be great.” They arrived around eight minutes later, worry in their gazes as they spotted Jim fitting himself in the proper space suit needed for the flight. “I’m going down to distract whatever is on the surface from doing any further harm to the ship. I want you two to come with me; I need your language capabilities and your co-piloting skills. Two security officers will come as well for safety measures.”

“Who will have the comms then?” Sulu asked. “You never appointed a First Officer after Spock.”

Jim tightened the black fingerless gloves on his hands. “Scotty is third in command, right? He has the comms.” The ship rocked and Jim slammed into the nose of the ship with a hiss. “Fuck.”

_I believe I have found the reason for interference._

“Spock?” he said aloud, quickly spinning to search for the _i’ki_ that accompanied the voice. “Where the hell did you go? You suddenly disappeared; I was worried when I could feel emptiness.” The man fixed his boots with a wheeze. “Also I think I just bruised my side but I can work through it. Tell me where you are.” 

_I am on the surface of Rho Xi II._  

“What _?_ ” 

_The psychic energies I emit from my i’ki and the Katric Ark are similar to that which the beings on Rho Xi II use in their transmission signals. They attempted to hail us once we reached orbit and instead accidentally transported me._ Jim pulled his helmet on and motioned for the other two—who were gaping at him—to suit up. _I tried to communicate with you through telepathy but it was blocked until now. I utilized their means of communication but what little_ nashinahr _I know did not suit the particular wave forms necessarily to relay information._

“So are you still semi-corporeal?”

_Negative; the transportation was similar to that of our transporter rays. I merged with what was left in the Katric Ark and exist fully as best as physics may allow me to without a physical body. I was incorporeal for many hours planetside, trapped in a spiritual form my people call_ tam’a _. I unfortunately do not know the exact amount of time I spent in and between these phases. Time is nothing but a theoretical concept when between realms; it is much like a wormhole. I only hope I have not been missing for long."_  

Jim grinned and felt a rush of adrenaline consume him. “I was planning to take a shuttle down to the surface but if you can communicate with me now then there shouldn’t be a need, huh?”

_I highly doubt it. The_ Enterprise _is still locked in the security system and I cannot decipher the exact language these beings are speaking. It is oddly similar to Klingon but simultaneously similar to the vocalizations of Terran Delphinus delphis._  

“Alright. I’ve got Uhura and Sulu with me so we’ll make our way down.” He climbed into the shuttle and watched the security guards and his friends make their way inside. “I’ll see you on the surface, yeah? Send me your coordinates if you can so I don’t land in the middle of a fiery ocean or something.”

Amusement blossomed in the bond. _Affirmative._

The conversation faded into silence after Spock relayed the appropriate information and Jim strapped himself in, flipping switches and pulling up the data from his PADD onto the screens before him. “We’ve got to go in with our shields down and disrupt the energy waves that keep interfering with the _Enterprise_ ’s magnetic fields.” He punched in the coordinates and tightened his seat belts. “I know you’ve probably got questions but once we’re planetside I promise you’ll know what’s up.”

The shuttle left the _Enterprise'_ s docks twenty minutes later and the moment they were in orbit, the shuttle was pulled with a startling strength toward the surface. Jim blasted the thrusters to full max and pulled up on the controls. Red flashed in his face and he hissed under his breath with gritted teeth. They came to a sudden stop mid-descent, lurching forward hard enough that Jim smashed his nose on the flight console. Uhura groaned and rubbed at the back of her head while Sulu gripped his side with a wince. Jim’s nose was burning and he could smell blood but it meant very little when weird voices came through the comms system.

“Oh,” gasped Uhura, turning up the speakers as she worked on editing the code for the translation system in ship. “I think I can map their syntax to a mixture of Klingon and Fergeni grammar and map the polyphonics to a rare Andorii dialect. It’s choppy and I can’t tell if the static is part of the language or our sensors being fried from the force we were pulled down with but hopefully this should work.” 

After a standstill for almost an hour the comms crackled to life with broken Federation Standard. “Big ship and big guns is threat. You enter airspace without appropriate documentation. You send Sharp Ear in black, this is threat.” Uhura cocked an eyebrow. “What is your reason for arrival?”

“We are the United Federation of Planets’ Starfleet flagship _USS Enterprise_. We come in peace and do not plan on using our weapons unless otherwise provoked.” Uhura spoke through the communicator. Jim hoped the outgoing transmission made sense in their language. “Our friend is not a threat; he is a pacifist and means no harm. Black is a respectful color in his culture.”

Sulu rubbed at his temples and murmured, “I cannot believe Spock is down there; what the _fuck_.”

“No threat?” the other being started. “Your shuttle carries guns as well. No shield so no intention to fire? Acceptable. We apologize for _unable to decipher phrase_.” Uhura cursed. “You are welcome to land. Only shuttle. Shuttle is safe. Do not trust big ship.”

“We’ll land at the dock coordinates you send to us.” 

The docking itself was uneventful but the beings they met were strikingly interesting. The strange beings Jim had dubbed Rhoxians had pale orange skin and solid silver eyes, whiskers protruding from cat like noses and feelers protruding from their foreheads. Their teeth were sharp, their ears more pointed than humans but not as pointed as Vulcans or Romulans. Lilac or pink hair draped down their backs in intricate braid patterns, and the clothing was tight fitting and offwhite shades of red and yellow. Jim was sure there were some colors his retinas couldn’t process and made him see a dull mud yellow on the purple-haired Rhoxian that greeted the crew.

Silver eyes locked with Jim’s as he strode toward the growing crowd, bowing his head with respect. “This is a human,” the Rhoxian smiled softly. Jim was pleased that the Universal Translator in their suits was reprogramming itself as its’ processors got used to the new language. “It has been a long time since we have greeted humans.”

“This is our first time greeting you. It’s a pleasure.” he smiled and scanned the crowd for Spock in his black robes. “Our friend who you accidentally transported here, where is he?” 

“Ah, his mind was in disarray so we took him to our medical center.” The feelers on the Rhoxian’s head wriggled in Jim’s direction and silver eyes widened with surprise. “You are his mate? We did not expect a mated pair aboard the ship. We would have never threatened or attacked if we knew.” 

“Wait, wait,” Jim put his hands up to stop the talking. His nose was throbbing again. “What do you mean Spock’s mind was in disarray? And you attacked the _Enterprise_?” 

A redhead Rhoxian spoke up. “Your Spock’s mind was torn, a buffer blocking energies. He is healing now after his psionic energies were exerted to communicate.” They turned to the lilac haired Rhoxian and then back to Jim. “As for your big ship, we merely halted the magnetic field frequencies used to keep big ship in orbit and shocked the shields in an attempt to disarm them.” 

Sulu moaned and Jim huffed a small breath. “No serious harm though, right? No weapons or anything that might have killed my crew members.” 

“Of course not,” the first Rhoxian purred a dolphin squeak. “Big ship is life-safe.” 

“That’s good. Thank you for listening to us. Can you take me to the medical ward? I need to see Spock.” 

Jim hated how vulnerable he sounded, how his voice wavered with his words. He didn’t want to expose how attached he was but the emptiness in his head still lingered and it was unnerving after a week of having something there. The redhead Rhoxian lowered their head. “You cannot see him now. He is resting.”

“I get that but,” Jim felt something drip from his nostril and he took a hand to his nose and pulled away with red blood smeared on his fingers. “Oh fuck, I hit my nose harder than I thought.”

There was a communal silence before multiple laser point guns were pointed directly at Jim’s chest and the lilac-haired Rhoxian hissed. “You dare speak of pillaging our people like this? You disgusting species; you horrific beasts!”

Jim slowly raised his hands in the universal symbol for surrender and turned to watch the rest of his crew do the same. “I think there was a misunderstanding in the translation,” Uhura murmured, clearing her throat to attempt direct communication without the Universal Translator.

Redhead tightened the grip on their gun. “Insult our prime leader like that one more time, you round-eared savage." 

Uhura looked to Sulu, who turned to Jim, who looked back at the Rhoxian delegates ready to blast him into one of the three suns in the sky. “We mean no harm; I don’t know what I did to anger you.” 

“You wipe blood from nose and speaking of hitting noses,” Lilac squawked in response. “You insult our great nation so prepare for incarceration.” 

That was how Jim found himself jailed with Uhura, Sulu, and two red shirts while a mysteriously silent (but still present) bond pulsed in his head. It didn’t feel like he was being blocked but it wasn’t the emptiness he has felt earlier when Spock had probably been transported. Jim’s nose was still running messily down his face and he couldn’t wipe it in fear of making his team’s situation even worse. 

Sulu attempted to make nice small talk and ask about how the hell Spock was existing, but Jim found it hard to talk with a bleeding probably broken nose and didn’t get far into the explanation before he had to stop talking so he didn’t pass out. Uhura was practicing Rhoxian language and deciphering dialects between the darker and lighter skinned beings that paced in front of their cell. After a few hours, Jim eventually started slipping in and out of conscious—a simple broken nose wouldn’t do this so he had to have been injured elsewhere—to the point that the next time he woke up he was strapped to a hospital bed in the ward he had been told he couldn’t visit. 

“You are our prisoner,” the nurse said with narrowed beady eyes, “but we do not wish to let you die.” 

“Um, thanks?” Jim rasped as the nurse turned the corner and left him alone.

He examined the room and found it similar enough to Starfleet’s typical medbays. There was a lot of rainbow tinted glass in the design along with an interestingly green metal that shimmered silver under the right lighting. The machines he was connected to beeped dulcet tones and flashed vibrant yellow words he couldn’t understand. Jim wasn’t able to reach his hands up to his nose, a good thing probably, but he could tell from the fading pain he felt there that it had been fixed and was healing. The side of him that he smashed into the nose of the shuttle was oddly numb and he turned his head to see if he could spot bandages but he was swathed in slightly irritating synthetic cloths that appeared to be an intricately wrapped robe.

The bond in his head was still silent and he furrowed his brow trying to reach out. He wasn’t hitting a wall like when Spock would block him, but he could still feel Spock there despite not actually _feeling_ his consciousness. Jim closed his eyes and released a large breath in the hopes that the rest of his away team was safe and being treated fairly despite his transgression.

Two nurses each with different shades of pink hair came to Jim’s bed before he could fully fall asleep. He opened sleepy eyes and smiled blurrily up at them. The taller nurse spoke first in slurred Federation Standard. “My name is N’huar and I am first born of Lin-kar. I will be your,” they turned to their fellow nurse, touched feelers, and then turned back to Jim with a smile, “nurse. That is the word for injury caretaker in your language, correct?”

“Yeah,” he tried to sit up and winced with the pain. “How did you learn Standard so fast?” 

“Sharp Ear in Black sent us language,” the dark pink haired pointed to their temple and then their feelers. “He is mind reader with amazing mind manipulation prowess. He incredible with mental—psychic is your term—powers.” 

“Kont’ia and I will attend to your injuries,” N’huar motioned to Jim’s still body. “We apologize for our nation-mates. Nose is important in our culture; all slurs and acts of aggression deal with noses.” 

“Indeed. To wipe nose with entire hand is to indicate sexual attack without consent,” Kont’ia wrinkled their nose in disgust. “To show blood from the motion is to invoke war.”

“Oh,” Jim gasped in horror. “That is definitely not what I intended. My nose was just broken; with humans it bleeds when we break our noses.” 

“Sharp Ear informed us of human fragility.” both nurses exchanged an indecipherable look. “He did not explain why his bonded mind was paired to such a frail being as you.” 

“We don’t know when it happened.” 

“When is not why, human.” ferocity grew in N’huar’s eyes. “Why is his mind connected to a human?”

Jim looked down at his bandaged chest with the words lodged in his throat. Spock hadn’t actually ever said he loved Jim, just that he had affection and feelings. He didn’t want to put the words in Spock’s mouth even if he excitedly realized how true it was.

“I bonded because I care immensely for him.”

All three turned at the sudden intrusion, Jim’s cracked lips splitting into a grin as he watched the tall pale Vulcan before him. Spock was still in black robes but they were wrapped in a special Rhoxian way that Jim had yet to see on anyone else. He looked sick, too pale with dull brown eyes and a thinness to his frame that discomfited Jim but it was still Spock. Spock was here before Jim in the, well, most corporeal state his _katra_ could be in.

“Love,” whispered Kont’ia with a bowed head. “I cannot find an equivalent meaning in my native tongue.”

“It is a very human concept. You are not alone in the struggle to find the proper phrase in a native tongue to describe it.” Spock’s eyes crinkled at the corners just the tiniest bit and Jim’s heart swooned. The Vulcan made his way to Jim’s bedside and lightly brushed sweaty blonde hair from his forehead. “I apologize for my late arrival; the stress caused from the recent days has weakened my _katra_. I have been found by Shariel and the Katric Ark is no more." 

Jim learned into the touch more than he would like to admit. Spock’s fingers were cool and soothing against his skin. “So, does this mean you’ll be leaving this realm soon? Was the offering finally done correctly back on New Vulcan?”

“Negative; The Delphinians helped me discover the reason for my death.” Spock pulled away and his face steeled too much for Jim’s comfort. “There is a danger that comes with repressing emotions and the memories that go along with it.”

“Did you block a memory?”

Spock shook his head and looked at a point past Jim’s bed. “My physical brain is inaccessible for me but the particular energy waves Delphinians emit surpasses our common modes of transportation and can apparently reconnect Vulcan _katra_ to a physical body for a limited amount of time.” The Vulcan looked down at Kont’ia, who hug her head low. “I was only connected for point-thirty-two Terran seconds and it was certainly not enough time for my buried body to reanimate but it was enough to understand two facts. The first being my burial was not completed in full. This is vital information for my hypothesis concerning the Elders and priests excising me from New Vulcan’s psyche. The second being,” and here he finally locked eyes with Jim, “I am suffering from _t’lokan schism_. It is a rare affliction only those with extremely intense psionic abilities can inflict on themselves. It is often caused by using too many neuron synapses in the attempt to repress a single emotion embedded in some part of the Vulcan’s consciousness.”

Jim frowned. “You said this brain damage would have to be something that happened mid healing trance else you would be fine.” Spock nodded. “So what did you find out midtrance?”

Spock paled. “I stated before that while coming out of a healing trance, it is important to reassess all bonds.”

“You found a new bond.”

“Affirmative.”

Jim turned his head with a hollow humorless chuckle. His side hurt with the movement. “It was our bond.”

“Yes.” Spock’s voice was so quiet Jim was surprised he heard it over the wurrs from the medical machines. Jim wasn’t even sure if he had heard Spock but simply knew the answer anyway. “It is a t’hy’la bond: unbreakable until death. My attempts to mend the screen I had originally put in place did not fare well for either of us.”

Jim could feel the anger boiling in his gut but he didn’t have the energy to do much about it. All he could think about was how Spock tried to suppress the bond, their love for each other, so much that he incidentally killed himself. He was _that_ scared of having feelings for Jim. It was pitifully appropriate. He wanted to ask more details but the words were thick on his tongue. He closed his eyes and didn’t let himself relax to fall asleep until he heard Spock leave the ward with the Rhoxians by his side.

Jim couldn’t remember dreaming but when he woke up, his eyes were wet and the back of his head was throbbing. There was a conversation somewhere on the other side of the bed and he was half tempted to eavesdrop but didn’t find it to be worth the time. He fell asleep and woke up three more times, the last time to Bones’ unamused face greeting him.

The blonde quickly sat up with a gasping breath. “When did you get here?”

“Those Rhoxian folks let the Enterprise land about four days ago. You’ve been in and out thanks to an allergy to some medication they used after fixing the internal bleeding your dumbass had.” the doctor crossed his arms with a roll of the eyes. “Spock is visible to all of us now, chatting telepathic and telekinetic powers with Rhoxians whenever he’s not busy watching over you. I think he knows he only has a little while left before his soul is gone forever.” 

Jim scowled. “Did he tell you _why_ he died in the first place?”

“He gave the senior crew a long convoluted explanation but all I got from it is that emotions are terribly overwhelming for his poor Vulcan mind.” Bones sat on the edge of the bed. “I’m sorry he freaked and found himself dead because of it but the bond also brought him back. It’s given you two the second chance you dummies never thought you’d have to be together." 

“He had blocked the bond _before_ his healing trance and it sounded like he’d done so many times already. That mission was just the time it killed him. I think it’s pretty clear this isn’t much of a second chance.” Jim growled as he turned away from his friend. “I can’t even feel him right now. He doesn’t _want_ it.”

“You are such an idiot,” Bones growled and pulled at Jim’s shoulder until he turned to look at him. “Spock loves you, Jim, and you know it. I can’t believe I’m defending the damn green-blooded fool right now but he really doesn’t know how to express that love. I mean, he’s spent 30 years of his life being trained to ignore and repress emotion.”

“That’s not an excuse.”

“Of course it isn’t but he said humans project emotion like we’re insane. Imagine having that blasted in your head for hours on end and not knowing what the hell to do about it.”

“He should have told me!” 

“You should have told _him_ how you feel! Spock isn’t human; he’s blunt about everything else but emotions. Actually, maybe that’s the human side of him rearing its’ ugly head because humans aren’t the best at emotions either. Still, at least we _do_ express them.” Bones laughed hoarsely. “The point is, he wouldn’t say shit about having a raging boner for his superior officer. That’s against a bunch of Starfleet codes and regulations. Plus, he probably made some weird ass calculations that it wouldn’t be worth the risk.” 

Jim ran his hands over his face with a deep groan. “I can’t just forgive him for never telling me about the direct connection to my head he had for who knows how fucking long. I can’t forgive him for dying over letting it mature.” 

“If you had the time to forgive then I’d say sicc it to him but you don’t have that time and I know you, kid. You’re gonna be more hung up over this than you were with his death in the first place.” 

“Did he say how long he has?” 

Bones shrugged. “Don’t know but he was staying at some high political faction’s safe house while the medics flushed those toxins out your system. I have the address if you want it but I don’t know if it will help. Directions are crazy as fuck out here.”

Jim gave himself about thirty minutes of contemplation after eating a short meal with Bones to decide if he would take the directions and see Spock. He was still smarting from Spock’s words and wasn’t in the mood to deal with any logic minded bullshit the Vulcan was bound to spew at him. At the same time, Bones’ words kept ringing through his head and he knew he had to be the better man and talk about these emotions. He knew Spock never would.

He left the hospital in purple robes, a hat covering his head from the heat of the suns above. Purple, blue, and yellow tuned the sky a variety of colors based on the angle he was at when he looked up. It was beautiful, various shades of orange, green, and red blending and shifting together to create something like a kaleidoscope flavor in the sky. The air was crisp and tainted with just the tiniest hint of mango, filling Jim’s mouth with a refreshing aftertaste. If he were here for shore leave he would definitely take a detour to the pink ocean and dip a toe on or even go back to the dock and gather intel on how their communication signals work. 

He was surprised at how there were really only two hair colors among the Rhoxians, various shades but still the same purple and red. Their feelers kept pointing toward Jim as he walked and he really tried to keep his thoughts to himself but it was hard. He didn’t know how to control this part of himself, he didn’t know any techniques to deal with his psi-sensitivity. Even if this whole relationship bond mess with Spock wasn’t resolved by the upcoming conversation, he had to at least know how to deal with muting his thoughts and blocking his psyche. 

It took a few wrong turns and attempting to use his translator to ask for confusing directions but he eventually got there. Gravity was weird on the surface thanks to Rhoxian manipulation over thousands of years. Walking upwards through gravity fields and entering space vortexes was a thing here; Jim had to go into vortexes shrinking him 4 xu small to travel between atoms and into hidden miniature provinces. The faction building itself resided on a cliff side facing the ocean a click or so south of the hospital. It was surrounded by silver gates with patrolling Rhoxian soldiers and they glared at him with flaring nostrils as he approached.

Jim opened his mouth to request entry but paused when he spotted Spock on the porch. Words were lodged in his throat and he lost his breath at the serene look on Spock’s celestially glowing face. He was in profile looking up at the blue sun with sparkles in his brown eyes. The shadows on his face glowed in color, highlighting his prominent nose, sharp cheekbones, and lush hair. Under the _Enterprise_ ’s fluorescent lights Spock’s hair usually had a blue-black tint to it but here on Rho Xi II Spock’s hair took a purple tint, a yellow tint, a green tint, almost translucent at the ends. He looked absolutely sumptuous and Jim felt something in his gut bubble with that gooey honeymoon romance love.

Spock noticed the staring and turned with a raised eyebrow. They were hundreds of meters apart but Jim could see the Vulcan mouth his name and could see the slight shock in his eyes. The bond suddenly wasn’t empty anymore and as they stood on opposite sides of the gate, Jim felt apology flooding in. He felt sorrow, remorse, fear, anxiety, and that familiar warm honey feeling love seemed to bring. _It’s okay_ , Jim thought, _I’m angry but I’m not going to let you leave believing I’m giving up on us._  

Spock smiled a non-smile. _I never assumed otherwise._ He held up two fingers and Jim mirrored it with a loopy grin. The Rhoxians at the gate gave him a look. _Your thoughts are bleeding from the bond into the Delphinian’s telepathy waves. I have strengthened the bond to keep as much in as possible but you will need to block out as much interference as possible on your end_.

Jim nodded. He closed his eyes to concentrate directly on the link and ignore whatever else was there. _Is that good?_

_Yes._

_Alright._ He opened his eyes to look Spock in his. _Well, you can guess what we need to talk about._

Spock looked vaguely uncomfortable. _There are many subjects of which we may need to discuss._

_Don’t pull that shit on me; you know what I’m here to talk about because your emotions are dripping with it._

_This should be a more private conversation._ Spock walked to the door and motioned to the guards who perked and moved out the way. Jim was silent as he approached the Vulcan and they made their way inside. The silence followed until Spock led them up three floors and into a telepathically obscured room. Once inside, the Vulcan turned on Jim with hard eyes. “The moment I leave this planet I will cease to exist on our plane of existence. I have informed Uhura to return to New Vulcan and update them so the offering is correct and my burial will have to be completed in full.” 

“So you plan to leave?”

“I must. This is not my home, the _Enterprise_ is.” He turned to the window, arms behind his back with a stilled patience. “There are ways to return my _katra_ to my body but it requires placing me in a different vessel until a safe transfer can be done. The best vessel at my current disposal would, in theory, be a sentient member of this planet but I cannot ask a stranger to sacrifice their free will and conscious for me.”

Jim reached out and held back whatever rejection he may have felt when Spock flinched at his touch. “I wouldn’t ask something like that from them either. I was talking to Bones before I came here and he said this is our second chance, you know? A chance for us to fix the barriers we physically, mentally, or emotionally put between ourselves.” He moved his hand down to grab Spock’s, gently twining their fingers. Spock’s cheeks flushed green and Jim smiled. “I love you, okay? I’m sorry I never said anything but you didn’t have to block our bond. It didn’t have to come to this and it won’t stay like this, you hear me? We’ll find a way even if I stay here with you for years as we try to make a vessel to bring you to New Vulcan. I’m sure I can concoct some reasonable excuse for Starfleet to suck up and deal with because I’m not going to continue this mission without you.” 

It was a selfish and greedy declaration that reeked of emotional compromise but Jim voiced it anyway. He was sure Spock knew in reality this situation was much more complicated—they were still the command team of the _Enterprise_ and Jim had responsibilities to the ship and her crew as the captain—but his dedication to Spock was what he most wanted to voice.

Spock grabbed Jim’s face and kissed him the human way, fingers pressing against his psi points with an urgency. Jim grabbed at the lapels of Spock’s robes, pressing into the kiss and relishing the taste Spock spilled in his mouth. The Vulcan wasn’t saying it, he probably wouldn’t be able to say the words for a while, but Jim could feel the love through the bond and knew his feelings were reciprocated.

“I apologize for causing you harm,” Spock whispered carefully,  “but I admit I was perhaps frightened by the prospect of informing you. I am relieved to know the worry was unnecessary.”

“Yeah, I don’t know what gave you the impression I don’t wanna bang, I thought I was pretty obvious but hey, we’re both idiots.” Spock snorted and it made the bond sing. “I’m serious though; you’re not completely out of the doghouse but I want you back in the flesh. If I can escape permanent death so can you.”

“I never climbed inside a doghouse in the first place, captain.”

“I know you know what I mean, commander.”

Spock smirked and pulled his face away. “Thank you.”

A mellow silence coated the air as they stepped outside onto the balcony hand-in-hand. Spock’s eyes shined with the vibrancy of diamonds. “You know you said thank you when you died in my arms.” Jim started quietly, staring at their entwined fingers. “There was so much blood, you were barely breathing, and you told me thank you. Why?” 

Spock closed his eyes as he turned to press his forehead to Jim’s. _I held, and still do hold, much gratitude toward you for gifting me the opportunity to be in love._

And in that moment on a new planet with three setting suns under the kaleidoscopic sky, Jim knew he would put in his all to keep their precious relationship burning for as long as possible, death be damned.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading this story; it's much appreciated! i have my own ideas on what they do to get spock back in his body but it's up in the air. i like the way this ends too much to add on how spock gets his body back but if it helps, he does eventually get it back ~~and he celebrates his fully corporeal body back on the ship in jims quarters with a lot of good old fashioned fucking but that's minor details~~.


End file.
